


Odd Affections Framework

by ninanna



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Geeks, I don't know how else to define this, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Nerdiness, Pining, Schmoop, awkward pining actually, basically the tumblr dev Levi xkit-guy Eren AU, casual tumblr stalking, it has turned into geeky schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3089555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninanna/pseuds/ninanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is a 22 years old recent college graduate who is driven by passions about social justice and making his favourite social network more accessible to its millions of users. He might be a crypto genius on the side and sought after by many companies, but reality is harsh when his idealism is relentless and he wants to make a <em>change</em> in the world, not just succumb to its shitty rules.</p><p>Enter Levi, 35 years old newly promoted front-end software architect at the said social network, with a history of hacktivism and a current hobby of making encrypted chatting tools for journalists and activists. Also a long-time fan of Eren's very own 'extension framework'. He <em>might</em> also be a casual stalker of Eren's personal blog. And perhaps has a wee bit of a (healthy) crush on the young man. </p><p>But there is no way that they can actually meet and connect... Or is there?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Lovelies, first of all, many thanks to the original owner of the prompt "Tumblr engineer!Levi / xkit-guy!Eren"; I tried to find it but could not. If you know, please let me know. ( **Edit-from-the-future** : I was informed of [oekaki-chan](http://oekaki-chan.tumblr.com/) on tumblr who had produced works on the prompt and based on their posts, it seems the prompt originally belonged to [trashkawaa](http://trashkawaa.tumblr.com/) on tumblr-- please let me know if I totally made a mistake; I went through tags but couldn't fish out an original prompt post.)
> 
> Second of all, several company names as well as xkit itself and 'xkit-guy' are mentioned; you see, I'm rather icky about writing fan fiction on real people or products but it was inevitable with this prompt. Just let me say that, I only took the setting -- Eren's characterisation here is based on Eren himself (and how he would _be_ in this AU) than the actual person who is the xkit-guy. The same goes for the products and companies; it's just how different people see them in this AU.
> 
> Third of all, I'm sorry that I took this prompt and added a ton of other stuff into it. You see, I just can't imagine Eren not being involved in social justice, especially if he lived at this time and was a Tumblr addict. I have similar feelings for Levi as well. 
> 
> Fourthly, I tried to minimise the software lingo, still if there's any that is confusing you, let me know and I'll try my best to explain.
> 
> And finally, wow, this is the longest author's note I've ever written, but there's actually a lot of little details of this AU that are not told explicitly or I just couldn't go into detail for length reasons, but I'd like to mention them in the author's notes at the end of each chapter, so watch out. Oh and this will be about 3-4 chapters depending on how I split it but it's already fully written, just awaiting editing :3

“Fuck this!”

 

Eren slammed his fists on the table causing everything on it, including the half-empty mugs of coffee and the laptops shake. Jean quickly cradled his sleek MacBook Air in time and shot a murderous gaze to Eren.

 

“The fuck is your problem Jaeger? What do you have against my Lucy?!”

 

If he wasn’t trembling with fury, Eren would make a smartass comment about ‘Lucy’; alas, he was incapacitated with pure anger. Armin rose up to that challenge though.

 

“Lucy? _Really_ , Jean?”

 

Jean was about to retort but Eren punched the table once more, shouting “Fuck fuck FUCK!” only to continue with a loud groan, because he obviously hurt his knuckles.

 

“God, you’re an idiot Jaeger…”

 

“Shut up horseface.”

 

“Very creative.”

 

“Yeah, better than Lucy.”

 

“What is wrong with you people? Lucy is a very nice—“

 

“What’s wrong Eren?”

 

While Eren’s unexpected bursts of rage were not particularly uncommon, considering he was still seething and had physically hurt himself, Armin was worried and curious.

 

“They changed it… _again_.” Eren muttered.

 

“Change what?”

 

“The UI. They changed the Tumblr UI again. Nothing actually functional, mind you, would be surprised if they did. Just a ton of different superficial crap that just screws the hell out of everything I have.”

 

“Shit, that’s why you’re going all homicidal? You’re such a loser.”

 

“Fuck, shut the fuck up Jean or I swear to God—“ Eren had already stood up, dangerously leaning towards Jean, who seemed to be ready to retaliate but only kept still due to the expensive laptop he was still cradling. Armin shot up and held onto Eren’s left arm;

 

“Come on Eren… Calm down.”

 

“But he—“

 

“It’s just Jean.”

 

“Wait, what is that supposed to mean?” Jean gave a betrayed glance to Armin who shrugged and continued trying to calm Eren down.

 

“Just breathe. In and out. In and out.”

 

Eren closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled in tandem with Armin’s soothing, guiding voice. He felt a tad bit better as he dropped himself back on his chair.

 

“It’s just... really frustrating.” He scowled.

 

“Only two weeks before Christmas too…”

 

“Yeah! And this is like the third time in less than four months. Like what the heck were they thinking?! And they never even bother to do a beta phase. Just… just dump it on the community.”

 

“ _The community_ … huh…” Jean snickered.

 

“Jean…” Armin was exasperated and Eren’s eyes wore the flames of rage once again:

 

“Yeah ‘the community’, not that a fucking corporate slave who treats people as data generators would get the concept so I guess it’s normal that you don’t get it.”

 

“Wow, such big, provocative words coming from someone who is practically crashing in his friends’ place, considering that, you know, you don’t actually pay any rent.”

 

Eren’s hands curled into fists immediately at the provocation; it was a sensitive spot for him and hearing it from Jean of all people annoyed him deeply. “It’s not your place and it’s definitely better than selling my soul to greedy companies for!”

 

“’s that so? Oh, I guess, it does make sense. You get to be a self-righteous asshole while leeching off on your friends who make the money by the means you so despise.”

 

Eren suddenly stood back up and was about to give Jean a piece of his mind and a couple of punches when a steely grip appeared on his shoulder.

 

“Sit down, Eren. You too, Jean. And stop shouting for god’s sake. The old man Hannes will start complaining again.”

 

Eren grumbled as he sat and stared at the plate Mikasa placed in front of him. She uttered a single command then: “Eat.”

 

After a final huff he pulled the plate closer and started devouring the sandwich Mikasa had prepared for him—his first meal in over twelve hours.

 

Concluding that the danger an unstable Eren posed to his ‘Lucy’ was now gone, Jean put her on the table gingerly.

 

“None for us?” He whined, teasing, only for Mikasa to roll her eyes.

 

“We already ate… He hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday lunch time. You coded all night long again, didn’t you?”

 

Eren shrugged, busy eating but then he recalled the source of his anger once again and his eyebrows furrowed in ire. He was still chewing when he spoke and Armin grimaced a little at the sight.

 

“Tha’s why ‘s so sooo fucked up.” He swallowed his mouthful. “Like I just finished the final testing and released the update and they just go and fuck it again. It took me weeks to fix that stupid sizing thing they did.”

 

“You really are a lost cause.”

 

Eren’s glare returned to its rightful place on Jean’s face, who seemed to be busy staring at his own screen, typing quickly, likely for work.

 

“Jean…” Armin intervened in Eren’s behalf but for once, instead of letting it go, Jean actually stopped his typing and turned his gaze to Armin, uncharacteristically critical.

 

“Look, I’m just trying to help. I get that you guys want him to follow his dreams and whatnot. But we all know—unfortunately—he is blessed with a really good mind for crypto and security. And what is he doing with it? Nothing.”

 

“’m doin’ a Master’s with it.” Eren barked back between bites but the way his voice was muffled diluted any venom it had.

 

“You yourself said yesterday that you might drop out of it.” Jean countered, which made Eren lower his gaze to the sandwich; this was a topic he specifically wanted to avoid as Mikasa was fiercely against it and he himself was not definitely certain.

 

“At this university… Even if I drop out from here, I’ll find somewhere else. I’m just not sure I can work for a place that is complicit in crimes of the government of—“

 

“This. _This_ is your problem.”

 

“Being a caring, social justice conscious human being is my problem?” Eren practically hissed.

 

Jean sighed with frustration and it wouldn’t affect Eren much, if Armin had not joined the bastard as well in the sigh.

 

“Armin…” He fussed, feeling betrayed. Mikasa cleared her throat then but any hopes that she might support him crushed right off the bat:

 

“He has a good point.”

 

“Come on now… All of you.”

 

“There is a whole world outside waiting for you! You’re 22. The popularity you’ve got with that extension is beyond crazy. You could do front-end. You know enough about big-data to do back-end or analytics. You’re an expert in crypto—you could work in security. You just graduated yet you have a dozen job offers from the best comp—“

 

“I’m not gonna work for the Facebooks or Amazons or Apples of this fucked up industry, okay?”

 

Jean’s jaw twitched at the mention of the company he had worked his ass off to get into and he abruptly stood up; for a second Armin thought that another fight might spark, and indeed Eren looked ready to pound but Jean simply closed the screen of Lucy and tucked her under his arm before stomping away to Mikasa’s room.

 

“You’re being hard on him…”

 

Eren openly gaped to Mikasa, frozen with disbelief at hearing his sister of all people to defend Jean and in this topic, too.

 

“You can’t be serious.”

 

“I am serious. Every time you got arrested during the protests, it was him who paid for your bail and he didn’t ask for a dime back. He was the one who paid our deposit when we moved in. Whenever we had a rough patch, it was him who helped.”

 

“He even bought your laptop as a gift…” Armin added in a murmur.

 

“And—and so, what, I should be forever grateful and just agree with everything he just…” Eren trailed off as guilt slowly crowded his insides. He was grateful to Jean. Armin’s scholarship hadn’t allowed him to work full time till recently and Mikasa barely had the time to work due to her heavy course load; medical school was simply brutal. “Fuck. It’s just… I know he means well but he is such a jerk.”

 

“He is a jerk but he has a point. It is your life if you want to spend it writing workarounds for a company’s product, whatever, do it. But it is not sustainable. You cannot earn enough from freelance client dev or website design, we both know. And yes, the industry sucks—but so does every other one out there. Medicine is supposed to be holy but I can assure you it’s Satan’s domain.”

 

“So you think I should just let myself go with the flow then?”

 

“No, I mean you should look at it more maturely and pragmatically. You are right in your ethical sensibilities, but he is also right in that idealism will not pay the rent.”

 

Eren sighed and started thumbing the crumbs left on the plate.

 

“And one more thing…”

 

Eren shot a suspicious glance, rather timid.

 

“Please start eating properly.” Mikasa smiled and Eren felt the tips of his ears flush as Armin giggled.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Oh come on, smile. You’re getting promoted, not demoted.”

 

“Fuck off shitty glasses.”

 

“Look, we all know that you’re a genius and that would do wonders at server-side, but they really need you on the front-end…”

 

“Yeah for picking up the slack for their crappy team.”

 

“Well now that team is _your_ team Levi, Mr. Chief Architect and Team Lead of Front-end Product Engineering.”

 

Levi sighed and took another large gulp from his bitter, premium Assam. He was switched to front-end two years ago because the team had not succeeded in moving it in the direction of the business interests of upper-management. Jumping from back-end to front-end was a big deal; surely, he didn’t miss the late-night calls about Hadoop outages or database replication issues or deployment disasters. But there was something extremely boring and unsatisfying about 9-to-5 coding, dealing with hipster colleagues who wanted to write ‘witty’ dialogues for every single interactive feature, and long, long meetings about the most superficial aspects of the product. At least he would be programming less now that he would be a team lead. It was the only silver lining of this whole shebang, he thought; he had hoped that they would return him back to working with the servers and operations teams, or becoming part of the new ‘search and discovery team’ and working with Hanji could be cool too. But no, instead they established his position in the front-end shit even more that it had become almost impossible to move back to his beloved less-in-humans more-in-machines side of the things.

 

“Okay, I know how to cheer you up…” Hanji piped up and quickly grabbed their phone. After a few swipes, they had a shit-eating grin on their face. Levi was mildly curious about what the hell they were talking about until—

 

“ **i can’t believe they did it again. only 3 hours after i released the new update too. i swear to god they were waiting for me or something… maybe they’re watching me.** ” Hanji read, making their voice a tad bit lower to mimic the young blogger-slash-developer’s imaginary voice. Levi snorted. He should have guessed. Hanji was about to read again when Levi interrupted;

 

“Hey, before moving on… Go on anon and ask him ‘ _I thought you didn’t believe in God_ ’. And properly spell the shit please.”

 

Hanji chortled as they tapped around and started typing the message Levi dictated; “You really are evil…” They mumbled to themselves.

 

“Not evil, just bored.” Levi explained as he took another sip. “So what else? God… I was so screwed up with the news and busy bitching at Erwin that I didn’t even have time to check his blog out…”

 

“Oh he is pissed. Like really. **fuck this, guys, srsly fuck it, i’m sorry but i don’t think i’ll be able to fix this one so easily…** ”

 

“ _Fix_? He’s talking as if we broke the shit. How can we break our own shit for fuck’s sake.”

 

“Well, didn’t you also call it an ‘unusable piece of crap’ earlier today?”

 

Levi shrugged; “Hey, I can call it that. It’s mine.”

 

Hanji snorted but Levi was unaffected, smirking instead.

 

“Aw, but the poor baby, Levi, listen to this: **guys i pulled an all-nighter for that last update… i’ll just go and crash for now, sorry for not replying to everyone. i really love you guys too. and fuck you tumblr. would it bankrupt you to hire an engineer with at least a bit of a design sense?** ”

 

Levi sniggered and hummed to himself; it was fun hearing the kid’s complaints and he would have to admit that he agreed with quite a few of it. Hell, he had used pretty much the same words to Nile the other week. But in honesty, it wasn’t that they didn’t have the talented engineers; this stuff simply wasn’t on their plate of things to do. Regardless, this Eren person entertained him a lot. Hanji made a fake-surprised ‘o’ with their mouth: “You really are evil.”

 

“Bah, so he didn’t sleep because he’s obsessed with his little tool shed.”

 

“Which you also use.”

 

“More than half the tumblr uses. Why do you think I got Erd to develop that tracker? This is all golden BI. We pretty much already know which features the users want thanks to this. I bet he has even more data though, would love to get my hands on it. Doubt the kid has any skill or means on that front.”

 

“You’re so shameless.”

 

“Hey, what the fuck can I do? I don’t decide on the direction of the business. This kind stuff is developed only if there’s incentive; unpaying users craving it is not one, according to the upper-management at least. Hell, I’m still fighting with Nile about that damned messaging system, at least the fucking outbox every single sprint but the shithead deprioritises it every fucking time.”

 

“I don’t get the outbox part at all… I mean it’s not even hard to write that!”

 

“I know! For fuck’s sake, it’s like what, ten lines of code, maybe? The QA cycle wouldn’t be any more than half a day. Smoke testing should be a breeze and maybe a mini load toast? But no, the bastard is all about ‘ _ads ads ads_ ’.”

 

“I just read yesterday that this quarter, 85% of Twitter’s revenue was from mobile ads though… So I get their point but it’s so boring…”

 

“Yeah, that’s where we want to go too, apparently, but fuck, see if they’ll be going anywhere if our user growth slows down because the UI is shitty and we don’t provide the needed features. Millenials are not like us, they’re a rowdy bunch.”

 

He was expecting Hanji to continue complaining but instead they exploded into a fit of giggles suddenly, almost making him jump with fright— _almost_.

 

“The hell Hanji?”

 

“The poor boy can’t get a break from you, can he? He must have checked his inbox before going to bed because he just replied to that ask.”

 

“What? What’s he saying?”

 

“Very eloquent: **you’re that asshole anon, aren’t you? it was a figure of speech, fuckhead. eat shit.** ”

 

Levi chuckled, quite amused; “God, I love how easy to rile up this kid is…”

 

“I’m thinking you’ve grown a wee bit of a healthy obsession on him.”

 

“A healthy obsession?”

 

“Yeah, because it helps your mood and you give less murderous glares? Anyway, why don’t you stop pissing him on anon and just, gee, I don’t know, actually talk to him or something? Introduce yourself?”

 

Levi’s eyes widened with sheer horror: “You got to be fucking kidding me.”

 

“Nope. You need to meet more people y’know. Plus, he’s cute. I saw you more than once staring at his selfies.”

 

“I—I was just trying to see who this little shit is. That’s all. He keeps bullshitting about us and his dev skills are… not bad.”

 

“Oh My God. You are blushing.”

 

“Am not. It’s because this sweater always makes me too hot. I shouldn’t have worn it today. Fuck off Hanji.”

 

“I was half-joking but do you seriously have a crush on this baby? But then I guess you must be, considering how you’ve scheduled the last two deployments strategically just to piss him off and get his attention. Oh My God. My li’l Levi is pulling the figurative hair of his play-mate-crush. I would normally not condone such behaviour but you’re emotionally a five-years old so, I guess no can do.”

 

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I just like to mess with him. That’s all there’s to it. Plus he’s like only 22.”

 

“Oh, so you even know how old he is?”

 

“Of course I know how old he is, he fucking put it right on his side-bar. He even has his name there.”

 

Hanji wiggled their eyebrows and Levi lifted his cup to mouth the last drops of his tea—and okay, maybe also to hide his face because much to his dread, his cheeks did feel rather hot.

 

“You may be 35 but you look really young.”

 

“I said—“

 

“And I mean wow, you really pack you know. Nobody would even guess you work a desk-job. You look more like a spartan fitness instructor than a software engineer.”

 

“Hanji.”

 

“Fine, fine, calm your very manly tits. But seriously, this _is_ silly…”

 

And it was. He knew it was silly but when you’re in front of a screen for more than sixty-hours a week and severely lack a social life—it just… _happened_. It was a good distraction and Eren’s grousing was fun to read and the kid had a really pretty face so seeing his awkwardly alluring selfies was… nice.

 

Hanji sighed as to avoid them Levi glared at his cup as if the porcelain had done a great wrong to him. They chuckled then, not the smug laughter from before but a soft, understanding one.

 

“Come on you grump, let’s go feed ourselves. I have the night maintenance tonight.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess which company Jean is working for? It's the one that has a fruit as its name :3 He is a computer engineer major and a year older than Eren and Armin, at the same age as Mikasa. He graduated a year earlier too, thanks to summer courses, and got a job at the said company right after graduation.
> 
> Armin is an astrophysics and linguistics joint-honours person who is an all-around genius and done computer science minor as well. He is also pursuing grad studies during the time-frame of this story. Eren and Mikasa have known him since childhood. Mikasa is doing a joint-degree BS/MD program, which is basically where you do undergrad and grad together in pursuit of a medical degree. (It's the standard medical education around the world though rare in the US, it is still provided by some universities.) When Eren and Mikasa first moved out after finishing their undergrad, Eren couldn't 'officially' move because he still had a year registered for the dorms but started crashing at their place regardless. 
> 
> Eren and other kiddies are in California whereas Levi and Hanji live in NYC.
> 
> You've probably realised but yeah, the bolded texts are Tumblr posts.
> 
> Final note: UI = user interface. So the dashboard of Tumblr, is for example, its UI. "Front-end" guys are the ones who design it amongst many other features that you personally interact with. "Back-end" guys are more about the 'deeper' layers, some cloud management, performance tuning, monitoring, search functions etc etc. I'm not familiar with Tumblr's organisational framework (nor their software architecture) per se, but I did check out their Linked In job ads and based on my own knowledge, this is how I pictured it. And none of you probably care about the tech geekery, but oh well :')


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I honestly didn't expect this much love for this little clumsy baby of mine, but thanks a lot everyone, you're all awesome :3 Honestly, this part is less about tumblr. Finally some geekery-- very subtle, I hope you guys don't mind?

Levi was working late into the night after spending his work hours in consecutive, useless meetings, when Eren released the update that 'fixed' several extensions that were broken after the last UI update they had pushed. Only three days. The kid was fast.

 

It was a good distraction; Levi looked over the release notes at the extension’s blog. The kid was very talented—too talented, even; how was he not working for someone big yet? The fact that he built up not just the basic extension framework, but added a cloud support to it was quite remarkable for a single-person team. He vaguely recalled Eren mentioning graduation a couple of months ago in his personal blog, so he must have finished his Bachelor’s. Levi refreshed the tab which had Eren's personal blog on (and it had become a staple of Levi's collection of Firefox tabs left forever open). That's when he saw another post from the kid in question:

**uh, guys, i normally never ask for this on my personal blog but i kind of really REALLY want to go to 31C3 (it’s this rad tech congress/con of sorts) but i’m lacking in funds for the plane tickets… so yeah, i’ve spent way too much time to fix everything after the recent changes and am officially behind on my freelance stuff… basically, i’m broke. very broke, can't-even-afford-good-coffee broke. so if you’ve been planning to donate, this would be a good time. i mean like any donation would be very much appreciated!  
**

 

Levi stared at the screen for a bit; if he recalled correctly, despite Eren’s weird sleep cycle, the kid was actually living in the West Coast (damn New Year's for exposing everyone's timezones). 31C3 was being held in Germany and that meant a lot of money, no wonder he was short on dough if he just freelanced and was a fresh grad. After only another moment of consideration, he clicked on the donation link.

 

* * *

 

 

“You fucker!” Hanji burst into his workspace and roared, causing everyone else in the entire floor to turn towards him. He raised a single finger which caused Hanji to shut their trap but their lips were squirming, obviously hardly keeping silent. He grabbed the bottle of painkillers on his desk and quickly swallowed two pills before getting up and storming away—Hanji was faithfully following him, all the while tittering as they made their way to the ninth floor cafeteria that was almost always deserted.

 

“What?” He bit, trying to seem as bored as possible, though he was quite anxious and had a good idea why Hanji was almost jumping in the spot they were standing right in front of him.

 

“You—“ they accused, “ _you_ are a stupid bastard.”

 

“Okay. Good. Now can I go back to my work?”

 

“Why? I mean… come on Levi, _why_? You could talk to him, be friends with him. And instead you do _this_.”

 

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re talking about.”

 

Hanji snickered and lifted the phone they had been holding, quickly swiping and reading it out loud—too loud for Levi’s eardrums, actually:

 

“ **OMG! guys… guys… i’m really grateful to you all. especially to **you**! you know who you are, the kind stranger who donated 3-fucking-000 $ at once ~~you’re my lord and saviour now mx unknown~~ ily all** ”

 

They swooned and repeated the last part: “ _I love you all_ – isn’t that cute Levi? He loves you all and _you_ specifically are his _lord and saviour_.”

 

“I don’t know why you think—“

 

“Please. Do I need to remind you that I have the highest IQ in this whole company?”

 

“You have the highest IQ in the whole goddamn state…”

 

“Which kind of proves my point. We both know you were the one. So why?”

 

“He wanted to go to 31C3.”

 

“Yeah, no, that doesn’t explain anything.”

 

“Look, the kid is brilliant but he is obviously struggling because he is obviously a stupid idealist and despite half the website is using his shit, I doubt many people donate. The planet tickets, plus the accommodation, plus the event tickets; it’s a lot.”

 

“That still doesn’t explain—“

 

“I just wanted him to confirm to himself that what he does matter and people appreciate what he does and 31C3 is fucking cool and informative so I’m sure he’s gonna learn a lot. So I’m giving back to the community. It’s that simple. Are you happy now?”

 

“Hmm maybe. I’m pretty happy but also nah because this is both cute and sad but you know what, I think overall I’m happy.”

 

“That’s good to know.”

 

“Yeah, especially since it means you won’t grumble about going to 31C3 with me anymore.”

 

“I didn’t say I changed my mind about going.”

 

“Yeah but you _will_ be going.”

 

They stared at each other for a few seconds; Hanji grinning with a smugness that caused acid rains on Levi’s pride and he continued narrowing his eyes to the point that he could barely see through his eyelids, yet this did nothing to deter their beaming. Finally he resigned.

 

“Yeah… I’ll go.”

 

* * *

 

Time passed by in a special way when you were keenly watching it; both slow and fast, the slimy trick of universe fiddled with his perception endlessly. There he was silently brooding over all the work (and time) he still had before leaving for Germany and then before he knew it, they had already arrived in the foreign country and Hanji was already having their second fit about profiling in airports (they had the first one when they left the States and it had not been pretty). 

 

They split up at the hotel as Hanji and Moblit opted for a quick nap to shake off the weariness of travel, while Levi had absolutely no chance of sleep, like the usual. He grabbed a quick breakfast and made his way to the conference centre where the events had already started.

 

Now, it was not as if he purposely changed his direction or hid behind the nearest available tall person whenever he came across Eren. It was not as if the fact that they ended up in the same lectures again and again caused fluttering in his chest and a self-satisfied smirk on his lips because _yes_ , as he guessed, this kid was interesting and interested in interesting stuff. He was also young looking. _Very_ young looking. Pictures did not do justice to Eren's youth or beautiful features and Levi bitterly remembered his own age and ancient face, where a pair of dark semi-circles resided permanently thanks to long years of insomnia.

 

What was worse was how he felt like a creep every time his eyes came across the figure of this stranger whom he knew a bit more than just a stranger… Because he stalked his blog and teased him on anon and okay, perhaps he also sent some anon love, now and then, when the kid was especially bummed out but hey, if Hanji couldn’t sniff it out yet, he wasn’t going to willingly disclose this corny truth. On the other hand, for Eren, he was a stranger, completely; thus none of these coincidences were ever acknowledged by him.

 

Throughout the first day, he saw Eren way too many times, often accompanied with two others, both with atrocious haircuts; one looking like a 90’s boyband star with his two-tone dyed hair and distastefully done undercut, the other with a pageboy cut which made him look like a walking mushroom, though it was rather cute in a kitsch sense. Eren’s own hair needed at least a trim but the unruly chestnut locks added a sweet charm to the bastard and apparently it wasn’t only Levi who realised the boy’s pretty face and even prettier curiosity, for Levi saw, on more than one occasion, people hitting on Eren. He felt like a creep every time they ended up in the same lecture hall or workshop or whatnot but he honestly did not specifically follow the brunet; they just kept running into each other... and Eren was understandably oblivious to this fact and...

 

_God_ , he was miserable. He was a miserable old fuck. What the hell was he even doing here? He hadn’t come last year. It had been a long time since he had been out of these circles anyway and some of the people who knew him were very cold due to the career decisions he made almost a decade ago. _Well, tough luck middle class shitheads, some people have cancer patient mothers they need to pay the bills for and don’t live in a social-democracy_.

 

It was the evening of the first day and he was busy with such thoughts, distracted from listening to the lecture on cryptography use by journalists—an old friend of his was in the panel—when he heard a specific nickname being mentioned and returned his attention back to the speaker.

 

“Please—please, I know ‘shitriver’ is a terrible nickname and I told him many times to change it but… to say the least, his sense of humour is… shit.”

 

The crowd burst into another series of laughter and Levi smiled fondly from amongst them to Petra who was grinning as she waited for the audience’s laughter to die down before continuing:

 

“As I said, he is working on the new version of Krypt and he tells me that it will be the golden standard of secure messaging, and I quote, ‘ _get an 8/7 rating with from EFF_ ’; so fingers crossed.”

 

Levi couldn’t help the rise of his self-satisfaction at the shout-out; it was rather unnecessary and Krypt was a side-project at best, but it helped knowing that his work was appreciated and utilised for good causes. After the lecture was over at around 1 am, he walked over to the stage to catch up with Petra. It was when they were chit-chatting about the recent leaks that a very well-known but-not-really-known face popped up right near Petra. Levi was dumbfounded for a second at the close proximity even though his face stayed as stoic as ever.

 

“Hey um Ms Petra?”

 

“Oh, Eren…”

 

_Fuck, you’re kidding me…_

 

“Hi… It was a really informative lecture, very entertaining too. Thanks.”

 

“No problem. Ah, Levi, you should meet Eren—Eren, this is Levi, an old and dear friend of mine. And Levi, this young man here is one of the big names of the future of cryptography.”

 

Eren’s face grew a dark shade of red and it was the first time Levi witnessed such a terribly cute side of the usually furious-through-text developer, whom he 'visually' knew only from selfies. It was torture for Levi to try and keep his lips lined straight and nonchalant at the sight; he managed though and raised a suspicious eyebrow instead.

 

“Is that so?”

 

“Yeah! He’s starting Master’s under Shadis this year. He did some research in the lab for side-channel attacks on AES-256, when he was only an undergrad—can you believe it?”

 

“That’s pretty impressive.”

 

Eren scratched his nape, seemingly uncomfortable with the attention and compliments; “N—not really, I’m just really interested in cryptography… I believe in a free and secure internet and I think cryptography is the key to both. So... yeah.”

 

This was news. Levi had seen one or two cryptography jokes on Eren’s blog but never too much info about his personal interests, other than certain social issues. He did put his name and age though and that was enough to decrypt his ‘real-life’ identity, in all likelihood—Levi simply had never tried taking that step, which he found to be rather problematic. He abstained from such nosiness on principle. If a person didn't want to share certain bits of their life with you without getting to know you first or at all for that matter, you had no right to dig around for those bits without their consent, even if said information was discoverable.

 

“Levi knows Shadis as well, though he learnt his ‘magic’ way before university and we didn’t have the lab back then anyway. Oh..." Petra smiled mischievously and whispered, head tilting to Eren's side a bit, "he is the ‘shitriver’ by the way.”

 

Eren’s eyes widened impossibly just then and he unabashedly pointed at Levi, his finger almost shaking; “You—you’re the ‘shitriver’?”

 

Levi shrugged despite the rising self-consciousness at being known—and called by such a stupid nickname too, but he only had his own fourteen years old self to blame for that misfortune.

 

“Wow. I—I use Krypt when chatting with some of my closer friends. And I was really surprised at how neat the code is, when I found it first; like you can get it all without even going through the documentation. Not to say I didn’t check the documentation—I did and you have like the most meticulous documentation I’ve ever seen on an open source project manned by a single developer. Wow. I _am_ rambling.”

 

That was very flattering and thus he allowed a side—only one side—of his lips to curve up.

 

“You know what,” Petra chimed in then, “why don’t we all go grab some drinks?”

 

To Levi’s horror and delight, Eren nodded enthusiastically while beaming at Levi.

 

* * *

 

 

It turned out, just as he expected given the recent revelation, Eren’s area of expertise was cryptography but he really liked software development and after being left to support himself and his step-sister due to an absent father and deceased mother, he had been earning a living by programming for many years now, despite his young age. It was commendable. It reminded Levi of his own past a bit. He also learnt that Eren was half-Turkish and half-German, lived with his best friend and step-sister, and was actually currently undecided about pursuing his Master’s or not, something about another department in his university being involved in a project for the military... Oh and he was gay.

 

Not that it was a surprise to Levi; half of kid’s reblogs were all gay porn gifs, after all.

 

Even though Eren seemed to flare up easily and break into tirades about issues he deemed important, like civil rights or government surveillance, he seemed to be rather reserved and detached in between, and awkward about actually expressing his thoughts in words whenever he was not burning with zeal—so he looked with those ridiculously large eyes of his, full of irritation or sadness or happiness or excitement, his lips curled up or down or pursed or pulled to a side and—his face just donned one emotion after another, always moving and Levi thought perhaps this kid really did not need words anyway; all the beautiful emotional spectrum he carried showed on his face in the most captivating and naked manner.

 

Levi on the other hand sat ‘emotionless’—not truthfully, for he felt perhaps a myriad different sentiments since the stupid brat had joined them, but his face kept the same indifferent expression; he wanted to change it, he wanted to say things too—things that could impress Eren, things that could highlight the concerns they shared about the society or the internet, things that could make Eren laugh—because _God_ he laughed so delightfully… But the goddamn ‘things’ never came to Levi; his vocabulary dwindled into nothing and he was mostly speechless, letting Petra drive the conversation around. He made comments here and there which mostly sounded too cryptic that she often felt the need to further explain to Eren what Levi actually meant. What a disaster, albeit not so surprising as the same scenario repeated itself many times in Levi’s life, often Hanji in the role of the ‘translator’, even when his audience did not include such a breathtaking individual as Eren.

 

He was not even aware of the hour when Petra excused herself to go to her hotel and sleep; “Because not everyone is a chronic insomniac like you Levi…” she smiled.

 

Even though the hotel was close by, in Levi’s humble opinion and experience the misogyny in the form of violent men was always a threat well-past midnight, so despite Petra’s insistence on it being unnecessary (not that he doubted her will or strength—but there was strength in numbers too), he accompanied her to the hotel. To his pleasure, Eren also tagged along. It was after dropping Petra and then walking Eren to his hostel (that is also after vehemently refusing the suggest of Eren accompanying Levi to the hotel, because “stop mumbling about my height, you brat; I’m a black belt in judo so if any of us requires a chaperone it’s you”) that Eren murmured about the possibility of _maybe, if only Levi had some free time or something, or maybe if they came across each other, to maybe spend some time together tomorrow,_ which was technically today.

 

Levi felt his heartbeat to disappear and everything—everything to just suspend in time, as he took in the clumsy words Eren had uttered. He should not have said yes but he did anyway, before even coming to the realisation that he did.

 

* * *

 

 

 

He thanked any and all gods and goddesses out there that Hanji was MIA like the day before; they and Moblit were nowhere to be found, likely hanging out with their own friends. It wasn’t very surprising and though they had mutual friends, their circles were different as their areas of expertise and interest were so (he never understood what Hanji found especially enthralling about search algorithms and data mining); still he was grateful because if Hanji saw this— _this situation_ … 

 

Basically: Eren followed him around like a loyal puppy everywhere during the second day. They went to the lectures together, dropped by the EFF table, and chatted. They talked about anything, not just cryptography—from firewalls, to face recognition algorithms, from music to anime. Eren spoke more than the night before and Levi listened just as sincerely as he did the night before. They were both honest about what they liked or not; Levi didn’t hide how he thought NGE was overrated while Eren confessed that he never understood why people adored Totoro so much—“ _He looks creepy!_ ”. They both agreed that Princess Mononoke was the best Ghibli film. Levi admitted that his favourite programming language was "still" C, while Eren mentioned how he wanted to work more in Python "because it's the most sensible language out there"— Levi agreed.  

 

Eren giggled at his shitty jokes and Levi felt his heart squeeze every time he heard the sweet noise. They did not exchange much confidential information though—or rather not the bits and pieces that most people found important because they ‘identified’ you somehow; like the age, or place of birth, or most importantly, occupation. This was after all a gathering of privacy-conscious people, so it was not unexpected but it warmed Levi and heartened him. Also, he was not sure how Eren would react learning that Levi worked at Tumblr, even if he had no idea about Levi’s somewhat-over-the-top interest in him from afar.

 

By day three, it was him who literally ran away from Hanji in the morning after meeting them for breakfast at their hotel room; and they would chase him, if they hadn’t been hit by the worst hangover. Fortunately Moblit was there to take care of them. Though he did not take pleasure in his friend’s suffering, nobody had asked them to be hammered so much and well, it was rather fortunate for Levi because Eren had somehow become inseparable from him in the time between the second day and now. And they had maybe indulged in some hot and heavy fondling over the clothes last night, while lazily enjoying one of the dj-sets, music loud but enchanting. But they had both been tipsy, it had been early hours of the morning, and everyone around them had been making out as well, making Levi unsure on how to interpret the mild but enthusiastic groping that had occurred or how to actually act around the brunet now.

 

However, as Levi realised after they so ‘casually’ ran into each other, Eren seemed unfazed with that development and they spent all their time together once again. If anything, he seemed to be emboldened by the last night's affair and carelessly touched Levi all throughout the day—their knuckles grazing as they walked side by side or Eren leaning too close that their bodies made contact in odd angles or how Eren’s hand lingered longer than normal as he tapped Levi on the shoulder and so on.  

 

Small touches that spoke of an intimacy that was too soon to happen, too unexpected to happen, yet happened anyway and caused these minuscule fireworks in Levi’s soul and electrifying chills on his skin every single time.

 

It was around 10 pm. They had skipped the last lecture of the day and instead went on a walk downtown. Hamburg was an okay-ish city, not specifically interesting for Levi, but there was something magical about walking around at night arm in arm with Eren—or rather they _were_ arm in arm and that was magical enough. The young man spoke of the weird grammar of Turkish and made bad puns in partial German that sounded funnier than they should, trembled slightly whenever a frigid wind slapped them, and rubbed his elbow on Levi’s side. He looked at Levi with these gleaming eyes, amused and hopeful and hypnotising, and his cheeks were flushed, and Levi wondered if it was because of the winter or blushing; he wondered—when Eren, realising Levi’s own wind-bitten red and swollen cheeks, commented that they were called “apple cheeks” in Turkish, thus Levi wondered, if they would indeed taste like apples if he licked them.

 

He did not lick them. But he did kiss.

 

On a whim, almost, by some madness that struck him unguarded, as they waited for the traffic light to turn green, he pulled Eren gingerly down from his sleeve and kissed those cheeks of crimson tint and then those lips, chapped by the claws of cruel weather yet they tasted so sweet, not like apple, nor anything like Levi had ever tasted but they tasted _so_ sweet and when Eren’s tongue touched his—and the light had turned and the people were walking around them to cross the street and he could swear he heard some German shouts directed at them— nothing mattered.

 

Nothing mattered in that moment and his world was set alight with a single spark from the tip of Eren’s tongue. It was sensual. In so many more ways than one; it was sensual and when Eren dragged him away into a desolate alley, when Eren pushed him against a wall and devoured his mouth, when he whimpered and gasped, pleasure betraying his cool façade, he thought he wanted this. He wanted this so much and not just this but more and not just now but again. He wanted Eren now, and later too. And these fleeting anxieties of desire faded a second later when Eren’s cold fingers slipped between the buttons of first his peacoat and then his shirt underneath, and touched his bare skin and he shuddered—he forgot those knots in the pit of his stomach and lost himself in the pleasing whirlwind that Eren was…

 

But they remained.

 

Those knots, those very real worries remained and reminded themselves to him cruelly the next day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 31C3 is an actual congress that happened this year and it was awesome, though the bits of it mentioned here are 99% imagined as I was not there.
> 
> Mx is a gender-neutral honorific. 
> 
> EFF = Electronic Frontier Foundation. They help keep your internet safe and free and they are amazing people. Check 'em out if you're interested.
> 
> EFF has a messaging scorecard which rates messaging apps for security; there're 7 categories, so it's obviously impossible to get 8/7; Levi was being a dick. The "Krypt" is a product I made up but inspiration came from CryptoCat, which is a cute encrypted messaging tool.
> 
> I suck at cryptography myself so let's just say side-channel attacks on AES-256 is a crypto study and likely not something an undergrad could do.
> 
> Hanji is a search engines and data mining enthusiast here; they are also very much into hardware in this AU. Levi hates hardware.
> 
> Petra is an academic; she dabbled in crypto but her expertise is in cyberwarfare and she frequently writes op-eds on the matter to newspapers and whatnot (because I really like the idea of Petra owning in such a male-dominated field).
> 
> In most social democracies government provides decent healthcare without any needs for private insurance; it's why Europe has had a much more affordable and reachable healthcare than the US for decades now.
> 
> I think this covers about all the things I wanted to note or thought could use some explaining; do let me know if there's any term I jumped that you'd want described.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to rewrite this and it became much longer than I intended-- sorry if it hurt the pacing ;( Also, this one has the cheesiest line of code I've ever written and even though it's so tiny, I'm dying from second-hand embarrassment, please don't slap me about it?

 

It was the day four. The last day.

 

The sun was cheerful despite Levi’s surly mood and the wintry weather; not a single cloud, an azure sky and glaring sunshine mocking the mortals below as the biting winds howled. In honesty, it was not that bad—being a New Yorker, he had long grown used to harsh winters and finally some sunshine in a city that saw only eight hours of (often dim) light during December should have been elating. But also, in honesty, not even the sun or stars or anything else thought to be grand and marvellous in the universe could uplift his soul that day and the mere existence of couples holding glove-clad hands as they walked down the street gave him stabs of jealousy.

 

_That could have been us_ , he couldn’t help but think—such a traitorous and agonising and pathetic thought that scratched his chest from the inside.  

 

When they had formally known each other only for a few days, how and most importantly why was he so stuck over Eren Jaeger anyway?

 

Some imaginary voice started counting the reasons effortlessly, immediately.

 

Because Eren was beautiful. Inside and out—he was oh so beautiful. Because Eren was a passionate flame that somehow kindled itself against any wind or rain—it seemed, at times, that nothing could despair the young man but it was not the idea of Eren with endless tenacity that mesmerised Levi. No, it was the fact that he knew Eren could be despaired but still managed to put himself together—that was what mesmerised Levi: this constant struggle the young man continued with full realisation of his own weakness. Because there—right there was a kind of courage Levi had not seen in most people, if ever.

 

Because Eren, was so inspiring, albeit in an odd way and with a touch nostalgia that Levi wanted to write poems for him in Standard ML, name his very own favourite black tea blend (a mix of Assam and Ceylon with cloves and a bit of honeybush) after him, see places together, watch The Matrix again like it’s 1999 and discuss for hours just what did this or that symbolism mean…

 

And it was so sudden. And Eren was so young—22. _Only_ 22\. And it had been four days— _only_ four and even three if he rounded down instead of up and he should have been afraid—he had every right and reason to be afraid—hadn’t even dated anyone in months, hadn’t even properly held a relationship in over a year and yet there was something natural and unseen, like gravity or magnetism, a true force of nature that pulled them together. He could not deny this attraction that ran deeper than an appreciation of skin or wits; it was more. It was more and he had to be scared, not only because of all the obvious reasons that made this yearning very irrational but also because of the guilt that ate away his insides—would Eren even smile so brightly, share his rebellious thoughts and beliefs eagerly, had he known Levi’s job?

 

_Is it that much of a big deal?_ He wondered. He recalled how devastated, literally depressed Oluo had become after Levi had accepted the offer at Amazon and later moved forward to Tumblr. But Oluo had idolised him; had seen him as this miraculous being much greater than them the feeble mortals when Levi had been anything but. So perhaps, somewhere inside he hoped that it wouldn’t go so roughly with Eren who had no such expectations. And somewhere inside he also hoped that Eren shared the same careless pull, because without that last part, it didn’t matter at all, did it?

 

The hope that this was something more grew in him despite the day and the fact that they would likely be saying their final “goodbyes” that very day.

 

For a moment, a stray rational thought to crush the defiant seed of hope came to him and he did consider going to breakfast with Hanji and Moblit and then join them in their plans of sightseeing for the whole day. Hanji must have been aware of things going on with Levi as well—how? He had no idea, for he sure had not seen them around and made sure to not stand out in the crowds whenever he was with Eren, nor had he divulged any information of his cancerously expanding affection for the boy to them. Somehow though, perhaps as a natural by-product of their genius, Hanji had been sending him ‘knowing’ messages since the night before. Maybe spending some time with them could clear his mind—and heart—off Eren. Maybe choosing Hanji and Moblit, choosing his life as it was, choosing the status quo would make him realise what an awful idea it was to let himself so readily drawn to someone he barely knew ( _but you know the taste of his mouth and his fears and passions—how is that barely_ , his mind protested, yet he ignored).

 

When Eren messaged him though—and the fact of seeing that name pop up on his mobile’s screen increased his heartrate twofold both due to affection and embarrassment at his own enthusiasm—about joining him for breakfast, about how he wanted Levi to meet with “some friends”, that stray rational thought faded away as trivially as it had appeared and once again Levi was certainly hooked.

 

Despite his internal bliss at being invited for breakfast with “friends”, he could not say that it went smooth. No, it started quite rough right away, thanks to one horse-faced young man named Jean.

 

Apparently, this Jean person, whom Levi had seen with Eren in the first day, was a close friend and had been very curious about whom “the grumpy stranger Eren ditched us for” was. The mere statement itself had placed Jean at the top of Levi’s unwanted list and he felt more than a bit of satisfaction when Eren elbowed the insolent brat for that particular remark. The other friend in tow was Armin, the cute mushroom guy who seemed like a teenager but apparently was the same age with the others—he was also Eren’s best friend and seemed like a very decent person so Levi went out of his way to speak more politely than usual with him, which was very difficult to achieve and thus tensed every single nerve in Levi’s being.

 

They ended up grabbing breakfast at a nearby café that did not have good tea but Levi couldn’t, wouldn’t complain—even in spite of Jean’s presence and annoying babbling—when Eren kept his palm on Levi’s thigh and rubbed simultaneously teasing and soothing circles with his thumb. He couldn’t help melting at these casual touches Eren blessed him with. He was already addicted to them. Sure the clock was ticking and soon he would not be able to enjoy such simple pleasures; but it was worth it—even if temporary and the probable withdrawal to come would be torturous, these moments were still worthy.

 

Despite Levi sitting across the table, Jean did not seem to have any issues throwing verbal stones at Eren now and then, especially about work, as if the subject matter was their usual breakfast chitchat—perhaps it was; Levi found it annoying regardless and Eren seemed quite miffed himself.

 

“I’m not saying the system is a rose garden; I’m saying that staying outside and pouting doesn’t change the fact that you’re still getting screwed by it; so why not at least try to grab your own piece from the pie? Especially when you’re starving.”

 

Levi had to admit that Jean—unfortunately—had a rather valid point; Eren was quite talented both in mainstream software development, especially web-based clients, and in cryptography. In either area, he could get a job that paid very decent; there was an endless demand for the former and only few possessed the brilliance the young man had for the latter.

 

“Because I don’t fucking want to be one those who screw people. There is no other way to exist there, Jean. You play by their rules or you don’t play. You fuckin’ know that too, Mr ‘ _I know this feature is creepy intrusive and eventually a massive security issue but hey it sounds cool to the ignorant masses and higher ups want it, so let me make it happen_ ’.”

 

Levi intimately understood Eren’s position; for he had been there, said that. Even though he liked his current work, he was icky about their control over user data or the top-down policymaking approach, which was unfortunately the norm in social networks. That passion to make a change or to be the change—Levi felt it too. That fear of conceding too much and becoming part of the ‘oppressors’—Levi had that too. But he had also come to know the bitter taste of defeat. The fact that against corporations, individuals did not have much value. The fact that defying the Big Brother was much easier when one did not have to worry about feeding themselves. Just as Levi knew the fire of freedom, he knew the pangs of hunger; life didn’t give you either of those easily and eventually one learnt to navigate. Thus, he became something in the middle: too ‘security-obsessed and anarchistic’ for his colleagues at work and too ‘corporate and selfish’ for his old friends at the hacktivism scene. In his opinion, he had just found his own way to survive. Do a little there, do a little here. Be a little there, be a little here. Try to always watch out and ensure your boundaries; tread carefully, do the minimum harm and contribute the maximum to the community.

 

In the greater scheme of things, his youthful dissidence in the past had not mattered as greatly as he had hoped and neither his corporate work had created the kinds of evil he had been afraid of. Not to say he couldn’t have done worse—there were levels of selling your soul; he just had never been too greedy. If he had wanted, he could have made it big with the government but the idea of shutting down another country’s internet for a politician’s ego-boost or stealing millions of people’s private conversations for state surveillance—even just the idea made him sick. At least, with his current job, he did create something useful and constructive, despite all its flaws and issues.

 

At the end, he kept out of the discussion. He surely was not going to defend Jean to Eren and he was seriously irked with the horse-face’s cockiness in relaying his stance; neither could he bring himself to defend Eren without highlighting the very important and real concerns Eren was dismissing due to the blissful ignorance and innocence so characteristic of youth. He did not feel like doing that in front of Jean, especially. Hence, he silently watched the two bicker and was glad to see them move on when Armin had enough and intervened. Then the conversation took a very bizarre turn as Armin started to very enthusiastically preach about quantum computing, which honestly did not interest Levi at all but it was better than the previous topic. 

 

It was near the end of their meal, when Jean had once again started talking about all the “amazing things” he was working on at “the most amazing company” (to which Eren snorted and added “the most amazing marketing company that is—not tech”), Armin, likely tired of Jean’s babbling, once again took the reins.

 

“You don’t speak much, do you, Levi?”

 

“Well, Jean seemed pretty into himself—didn’t want to disturb that.”

 

Eren chuckled and Jean gave him a dirty look; Armin simply smiled and asked, politely but with certain decisiveness in his gaze: “So, for example, how old are you?”

 

“Armin.”

 

“What? Don’t tell me you don’t know how old he is?”

 

No, Eren did not. They had never really talked about it. More importantly, it was rather apparent that Armin must have known of this fact—the question had not been random. Levi thought maybe Eren was not baselessly boasting when he claimed Armin was a genius earlier on. The guy’s academic prowess was surely a sign but being ‘clever’ was something else. Armin seemed both intelligent and clever.

 

“35.”

 

It would be a lie to say that he did not feel at least slightly burdened with the age difference. Still, confessing his age was completely worth it for Jean choked on his coffee quite spectacularly and, before Eren or Armin could react, jumped with a “dude, you gotta be shitting us!”

 

Levi shrugged and Armin scrutinised him rather pointedly; “You do look much younger…”

 

“I have good genes.”

 

“Ah your height must be the—“ Jean didn’t finish his sentence after Levi gave him a particularly dirty side-eye; not that he minded jabs at his height much, but it was fun seeing the kid get so flustered and intimidated.

 

“Wow. I knew you were older but…”

 

For a second the words felt prickly to Levi but Eren’s hand was still on him—near his waist now and the continued contact kept him calm. It was normal that Eren felt a bit weird, hearing it surely—

 

“Is it weird that I find it really hot?”

 

Everyone’s eyes, including Levi’s, unabashedly bemused turned to Eren who scoffed; “Come on? It’s just… Really cool in a way.”

 

“I cannot believe you.” Jean muttered and Armin seemed to agree with a light nod of his head; Eren simply giggled and scooted his body closer to Levi’s such that their shoulders touched.

 

“What about—“

 

“I think interrogation time is over Armin.”

 

“I literally asked one question, Eren.”

 

“Yeah and if I let you, you will ask a dozen.”

 

“A dozen is rather too many than necessary. Plus, I don’t think you’re in a position of letting me or not?”

 

It was both interesting and a bit threatening to watch the two at it—Levi was intrigued by blondie’s obvious attempt at protecting his friend by figuring out just who Levi ‘actually’ was (according to society’s standards) and Eren seemed much more understanding than usual when talking with his best friend. Still, these were dangerous waters for Levi, because the next question would likely be—

 

“You don’t even know what he does for a living.”

 

“Yeah, he could be a stripper. Not that I have anything against strippers—perfectly legitimate line of business. It’d actually be kind of cool to meet a male stripper!” Jean exclaimed and Eren was rolling his eyes when Levi interjected with a (purposely) bored voice:

 

“I could introduce some friends to you.”

 

That hooked all the three pairs of eyes on him; he smirked.

 

“Well, thank you, it’s flattering you all think I’m hot enough to be a stripper but no, I’m not. Not that there’s anything wrong with it—as Jean said, it is a very legitimate occupation.”

 

“But you have stripper friends?” Armin asked. Nothing escaped this little spy-in-training, it seemed.

 

“Yeah, is that a problem?”

 

“No.” Eren answered with finality and Armin flustered, trying to explain: “I—I didn’t mean there was a problem with it. Was just curious.”

 

“Oh you’re interested?”

 

Both Eren and Jean cackled at that and Armin threw a fake punch at Jean’s shoulder and elaborated for Levi; “I’m asexual and in general not very much interested in that sort of… um performance art.”

 

“Performance art.” Levi repeated and Armin nodded timidly. _Oh_ , Levi thought, _Nanaba would have loved this cutie_.

 

“So if you’re not a stripper,” Jean started then and Levi exhaled bracing himself for the question he knew would come, “what do you do for a living?”

 

“Guys, come one, he doesn’t have to—“

 

“I’m a software developer.”

 

Eren’s shoulders slouched and he reclined on his chair and let his friends proceed with their interrogation, seemingly defeated (he was likely interested despite himself). Levi knew soon he would have to reveal more than he initially wanted to but perhaps this was for the best. _No, this is definitely for the best_ , he emphasised to himself.

 

“Cool. What do you develop?”

 

“Used to be on the server-side but I’m doing more web client, end-user interface kind of stuff these days.”

 

“Nice, we do similar things then. I just finished working on a security feature for our new line of devices, and am now on the end-user interface for the cloud.”

 

“Which company do you work for, by the way?” Armin asked taking a sip from his nearly-finished coffee.

 

“Tumblr.”

 

Even though Eren had been completely silent for the last two minutes or so, it was him who reacted first to the news.

 

“You work in Tumblr?!”

 

His voice was strained and shocked, a tinge of betrayal too, or perhaps Levi was imagining things based on his previous expectations. In any case, it scratched Levi’s ears painfully, rising the tide of guilt within him but he did not let it show on his face.

 

“Yes?”

 

“You never told me.”

 

Afraid of what he might see in Eren’s eyes, he avoided looking at him and took a sip from his tea calmly.

 

“You never asked.”

 

Eren’s hand disappeared from his thigh and suddenly he felt cold—too cold. Had he made a mistake telling this? Would it have been better to never reveal it and go their separate ways so that both could recall this ‘fling’ fondly in the future? But no, Eren deserved the truth and Levi had sincerely wanted this to be more than just a fling. Plus… it wasn’t that bad, was it? He wasn’t working for Blackwater, for God’s sake.

 

Jean snorted loudly, adding insult to the injury.

 

“I can’t believe it. Eren, you like, curse on them what, on a daily basis? Hey Levi, did you know that? You should check his blog out; you guys are at the top of his rant list. Oh wait, Eren, you didn’t tell Levi who you are, did you?”

 

“Jean…” The unhidden threat in Eren’s voice did nothing to deter Jean from snickering and dropping the bomb which Levi already knew.

 

“Oh come on. Levi, this guy here is the famous xkit-guy.”

 

“Is that so…” Levi drawled, finally gathering his courage, he turned to Eren, his eyes desperately trying to convey an apology but Eren seemed too interested on the surface of the table.

 

“Yeah dude. He totally hates you guys because, no offence but you’re really awful when it comes to feature development. And wow Eren, I can’t believe this, you go and grow the biggest fucking crush on—“ before Jean could finish his words he was pushed aside off his chair by Armin. Or technically, by Armin’s kick. Armin gave Levi a quiet smile and explained, while Jean whined:

 

“He sometimes gets a bit too cocky. Especially when he has had too much caffeine, which he did today. Also, hate is a very strong word; surely, you didn’t mean that, right Jean?”

 

“I—I’ll… go to the restroom.” Eren rushed then, as if to run away from Levi and the matter at hand. ‘As if’? He was running away, there was no mistaking it; to the point that even Jean looked behind Eren with a curious glare and then sighed and then face-palmed, likely finally aware of the blunder he made.

 

Armin looked heartbroken for a second before schooling his expression into a neutral one and leaned forward; “Levi, can I ask you a question?”

 

“Sure?”

 

“I’ve always wondered but, do you use Eren’s toolkit? I mean, you and other people in the staff?”

 

“Almost all of us who have personal blogs use it, though not everyone has personal tumblr blogs.”

 

 “So you—yourself, do _you_ use it then?”

 

Levi had an inkling of the actual intention here but thought that the damage was done. He did not understand the benefit of an answer, but answered anyway.

 

“Yeah, in fact I appreciate it a lot.”

 

“That’s good to hear—I’m sure Eren would’ve loved to hear that.”

 

“I think he hears that from thousands of people every day though.”

 

“I think he would be glad to hear it specifically from you. By the way, you don’t really seem surprised that he is the creator behind it? Eren is not a common name and he even put it on his blog, despite my warnings otherwise, actually. Even posts selfies. He’s really stubborn.”

 

This affirmed to Levi that no, Eren had definitely not been bragging in vain about his ‘bff’. He sighed and stood, quite bothered at the attention he was getting and the absence of Eren grated on his nerves—the fact that he had left, just like that…

 

“Yeah, he is. That’s one of his charms, I guess. I’ll head back to the hotel, have a nice day.”

 

He knew leaving like this would only have Armin confirm his apparent suspicions but he desperately needed… some air. And space. And time to think. He really fucked this up, right? Why had Eren reacted that extremely, anyway? He didn’t even know that Levi knew who he was or was lurking around his blog or sending him anon asks every goddamn day or— _Fuck_. If he reacted so badly without even knowing any of that, he would surely be weirded out beyond belief if he knew.

 

The freezing air prickled his face as he slowly walked to the hotel and the ghost of Eren’s touch on his thigh hurt more than anything else.

 

* * *

 

 

Between hanging around with Eren and spending any stretch of time that they were not together by daydreaming or sleeping, Levi had not checked Eren’s blog for days. Approximately an hour after the ‘catastrophe’, he dared himself to take a look at it.

 

Eren had updated roughly half an hour ago with a single text post:

 

**fuck.**

 

That summed it up rather nicely, he concurred.

 

Not in the mood for attending anything else at 31C3 and in dire need of distracting himself, he went over his work email. Only four days of PTO and his inbox already had 231 unread emails. He sighed and started going through them; it wasn’t unusual for him. In fact what was unusual was him not checking his email, even during vacations, as he liked to stay in control of his environment, including work. This was something Erwin always chided him about but so what; he didn’t have much of a social life and instead spent vacations still keeping up with work emails—so what?

_“Sasha, I removed your user story about adding a notp filter based on face recognition powered by artworks submitted by the user. Stop opening shitty user stories or I will revoke your fridge privileges.”_

_“No, Connie, you cannot postpone the due date for the goddamn url filtering bug fix. Stop being a lazyass just because I’m away and do your work properly. And no, we cannot fucking change the background to gifs of fireworks at the turn of the New Year. Do you even think?! There are people with epilepsy for god’s sake, you stupid shit.”_

 

It took him only a little over an hour to go through 231 emails. Having nothing to do and confirming that Hanji and Moblit were still out, he returned back to his phone and… Eren’s blog. The kid had not posted anything else after that last ‘wordy’ statement of his current mood, but Levi took this as an opportunity to go through the things Eren had posted in the last few days.

 

His fingers squeezed the phone tight. This… _These_ …

 

There were all kinds of witty but also sappy quotes being reblogged in between shots of the city… and ‘them’. Nothing descript or identifiable, none showing Levi’s face or figure per se; their fingers intertwined (“ _how did he even manage to get a picture of it?”_ ), Eren’s own face while he was resting his head on Levi’s shoulder (it was from that night when they had been out at one of the music events and some groping had followed the initial snuggling), the noses of their shoes as they were standing next to each other likely waiting for something… The photographs were so uniquely sweet and intimate that Levi’s heart started crumbling into tiny pieces and with every heartbeat—it hurt. It fucking hurt. The ripples of ache spread through his chest and he thought, _shit_. He really liked this boy. And he really fucked this up.

 

He fucked it up not only because he ran away like a prick who never actually gave a shit about what they had, but also because he hadn’t been actually, fully truthful. From the beginning, he should have. Eren’s anger at the matter was petty at best and could be easily arguable—and so what, if Levi liked his blog and reading his silly ramblings? So what, if Levi earned a living by writing the code for the very platform Eren and many others so lovingly used and created a wonderful million things with?

 

His eyes got stuck on a text post.

 

**i just really don’t want these 4 days to end but they will… it’s so unfair. time and space suck. i wish i could enclose myself in an infinite loop of this moment. no srsly.**

**while(True):**

**print("this moment")**

 

It was the cheesiest thing anyone ever said or did in relation to him, to the point that he felt his face burn with second-hand embarrassment. He wanted to believe, so desperately that he was being an arrogant ass for thinking it had to do with him and not just Eren having a good time; but it had to—it had to have something to do with Levi. Because he so shamelessly checked the time and _yes_ , they were together then, when this was posted; they were huddled in the corner of a shoddy café downtown and fondling each other still, about an hour after their impromptu make-out session out in the cold and dark backstreets of Hamburg. Had Eren sneaked in this post when Levi was distracted trying to warm his chilled bones with a cup of coffee? Or had it been when he went to the restroom? Regardless, it had been then, at that peaceful hour when they were so close and ‘together’ and—

 

He had to do something. Something honest and deserving of one last shot because this— _this_ was real, wasn’t it? Even though it had been only a few days, even though he had done stupid shit beforehand, even though they were strangers—it was at least worth a shot, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he thought so before and didn’t he think so still? The erratic beating of his heart and the pain of loss still reverberating across his ribcage affirmed him the answer to such questions.

 

He tapped on the little envelope icon to send an ask (and cursed Nile once more for deprioritising a proper messaging system, “ _fuck you Nile, fuck you and your business interests_ ”). At first he hovered over anonymous option—even if he sent “sorry” right now on anon, Eren would recognise him right? What else would he think or realise?

 

He had to come clean though. If there was anything to this—if he was right about the ‘chance’ he saw and not just imagined it, he had to come clean. So he did. He started writing ask after ask; because his pent-up feelings and frustrations were verbose (and he muttered to himself, “ _fuck you Nile, seriously fuck you, is this fucking twitter-- the fuck with the char limits, and the fuck with you postponing that damned messaging system._ ”) Explaining how two years ago when he was moved to front-end engineering from mainly working on performance monitoring and service quality at the back-end. How he discovered Eren’s ‘baby’. How he was very impressed. How he started playing around with it. How it helped him a lot as a user. How he enjoyed Eren’s antics and especially gripes – most of which he found very valid. How he found Eren’s selfies particularly “ _infuriating because, fuck you’re too beautiful_ ”. How he maybe once or twice or more times rescheduled a feature deployment because he loved hearing Eren’s reactions—“ _which are much better than the in-house critiques we get_ ”. How he profoundly enjoyed the last few days when they actually got to know each and Eren turned out to be “ _even more of a perfect little shit_ ” than he seemed online. He talked of everything but the donation he made because that—that had actually not been ‘specifically’ about Eren. Any other bright person asking for the same, he would have given it. There had been a time, a decade ago, when he had been in a similar position and would be ecstatic if anyone did a favour like that. So that was a payback to the community; not about their relationship— _possible relationship_ , his mind corrected. He was not sure how many asks he sent; probably way too many to not sound creepy. Maybe he should have sent fan mail—but _God_ , those looked so tacky.

 

Once he was done with his confession, he switched his phone to mute and buried it under his pillow. He took twice the melatonin he usually did and tried his best to smother himself with sleep and even though she was slippery and capricious, she finally arrived an hour later and pulled him into unconsciousness.

 

Hours later, Levi woke up to Hanji’s scolding about “ _how did you not set up an alarm?_ ” and realised with disdain that he had slept much longer than usual. They would be late to the airport at this rate. He had to rush dressing up and struggled to sneak into the bathroom to take a quick shower but was disallowed by Hanji’s strong arms and Moblit’s pleading eyes at the door. He felt pasty everywhere even though he was pretty certain that he was clean; he would have to wait to arrive home for a proper shower, still, and the idea frustrated him greatly. He finally gathered enough courage to check his phone at the airport to see that there were no new messages in his inbox.

 

He did not sleep during the flight, like always, and fussed less, and acted more like a zombie than his usual irked self at the security check; how bizarrely out of it he must have been that even Hanji did not feel like transgressing his boundaries this one time and instead tried to lift the mood through the silliest anecdotes—at least Levi thought they must have been based on Hanji’s tone, for he could not even comprehend the words, his mind busy wandering across the grey clouds in grief of a happiness lost only hours ago…

 

When he finally arrived home… ‘home’ was empty, like usual, cold too because he had apparently forgotten a window open, and he stank. Probably not, objectively—but he _felt_ like he stank.

 

_Fuck you too 2014_ , he thought and wished the New Year in two days would be a better one where he would not foolishly form attachments in a heartbeat and have them shattered in only few days. He was too old for whirlwinds of romance, like this, he decided.

 

As he stomped towards his bathroom, keen to not get out of there for at least the next hour, he swore himself that he would get over it—he would move on. Move on from Eren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Standard ML is a functional programming language that will either be bane of your existence, or holy grail.
> 
> -"Blackwater", currently named "Academi" is a private military company infamous for their record of atrocities. They mainly worked for the USG. They are worse than horrible.
> 
> -A "user story" is basically a description of a specific use (or need) of a user of the system; they are nice little things used to define and design new features. There are tools which companies use to add and track "user stories" for a software project.
> 
> -The two lines below Eren's text post are lines of code in Python that will print out "this moment" in an infinite loop (i.e. it will continue on printing that sentence-- until you're sick of it and kill the process). It is cheesy, I know, I even have a story behind this one-- let me just say this much: love can make you write very silly, basic, and corny code.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A humongous amount of re-writing later, here it is, but a bit discrete in narrative; hope it still makes sense. Also, one day I'll write a slow build fic about he struggles of long-distance relationships. Today is not that day.

 

“Will you stop… moping about this, please?”

 

“I’m not moping.”

 

 “You haven’t been eating properly again, you haven’t gotten out of the house for a whole week—including the New Year’s eve and—Eren, look at me.”

 

He shot a glare to Mikasa but the much sturdier glare he received quickly caused his own to perish in embarrassment and he moved his gaze to the code in front of him once again. The black characters shone on the white screen and felt like ominous runes of ancient magic. He was distracted. Maybe if he changed the colour setting he could concentrate—

 

“Eren Jaeger.”

 

“What. What, Mikasa? What?! I’m not a kid for god’s sake, you don’t have to baby me.”

 

“Yes. You are a 22 years old adult man and thus you can get over this. So you had a fling. So he screwed up. Honestly, I’m very much against the idea of you dating this man who couldn’t even be honest with you to begin with—hey, stop frowning. You yourself spent the first two days you were back simply seething over that. Anyway, I don’t want such a man in your life but I also don’t want you… like this.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like an emotional mess who eats more ice cream than actual meals and does nothing but code. You haven’t even showered in days.” Armin interrupted as he sat across Eren, Mikasa pacing there as well, standing behind the blond with her arms crossed and looking… kind of menacing. It seemed frighteningly like an intervention.

 

Armin continued with a calm but reprimanding tone:

 

“You’re in front of the screen 24/7 but haven’t even been posting, people are worried. I can see the count on your inbox you know—178 messages. People are scared that you are depressed—we are scared that you’re depressed. And I think we all know the main factor in all this.”

 

“It’s… it’s not him.”

 

“Really? Because you might be good at keeping your tracks but we live together; do you think I haven’t seen you googling him? Do you think I haven’t realised how many times you’ve sniffed around for his pics, hunting down and constantly checking his Tumblr and Twitter? Eren, you’ve literally been looking at his Linked In profile all day. _Linked In profile_. This is not normal.”

 

Eren stared at them hard for a second but when his stare had no effect he slumped down on his own chair and closed his eyes.

 

“Okay. Maybe—just _maybe_ , it could be about him as well.”

 

“You’re infatuated.” Armin mumbled with a half smile and Mikasa hissed an “unfortunately” right after.

 

“He’s just… he was so cool, okay? He listened. He listened, Armin, I babbled on and on and he listened. He was—okay this will sound ridiculously ironic, _but—_ he was so frank. Like, he didn’t pretend to like my ideas if he didn’t actually like them. I don’t know why he kept the other stuff, or I guess I do because he explained and I can see his point but that doesn’t excuse it, I know… but…”

 

Eren trailed off and covered his face with his hands. Armin was about to ask if he was okay, when he abruptly removed his hands and started, in a rambling fashion:

 

“I just don’t get it because he was so frank about everything else! And then he made the weirdest jokes. And we actually like the same kinds of anime and he knows a shit ton about cryptography but he is mostly self-taught, how is that even possible and not just in that either. He knows so much so well from data mining to cloud computing, and he has _this face_ so damn hard to read and stoic but that only makes it even more amazing when he has the slightest expressions… a tiny smile and you’re gone, you just die and he has the prettiest nose I’ve seen and he always smelt like lavender and soap and just… Wow. _Okay_. I am infatuated. I know it was only a few days but when he kissed me—“

 

“Cut. Nope. No. Any other word vomit, whatever, but I’m not hearing how you felt when he kissed you.” Mikasa nodded to herself with certainty and Eren huffed.

 

“So why don’t you try to reach out to him then?”

 

“And what will I say? _Hi, I’m the brat who has been shitting on your very own engineering team for years now and I also kind of ran away when I learnt who you were because even though I’m stupidly honest and outspoken, I’m also awkward as fuck about relationships and I panicked and oh, I also make daily posts about evils of unrestrained powers of corporations on social networks, one of which happens to be yours_.”

 

“And he must know all that since, as he told you, he has been following you. So he already knows all that but he still kissed you. He still spent time with you. He still saw that connection.”

 

“Do you really think he did?”

 

“Eren, how many asks did he send you that day?”

 

“23… I don’t even know how he circumvented the ask limit.”

 

“I think that kind of shows how desperate he was. And running away? He’s equally shitty for that. He ran away too.”

 

Mikasa nodded once again; “Which also shows he’s shitty and you deserve better.”

 

Both Armin and Eren groaned at the same time.

 

“Not to defend a guy who made and then broke Eren’s heart in just a few days, but he really looked very fond of Eren. Also when we spoke briefly after Eren’s… um… exit, he was visibly crestfallen. I think he deserves at least a trial run.”

 

“Oh so he was sad he screwed up, doesn’t change that he screwed up. Also they don’t even know each other much—it’s a bit ridiculous.”

 

“It is a bit ridiculous, I’ll admit but look at Eren for god’s sake; he’s so stuck. Do you think he’ll be able to move on without closure? He needs at least closure.”

 

“Guys… I’m still here.”

 

“Yes, you are, so what’s your opinion? What’s the verdict?”

 

“Argh Armin, I don’t know. I mean… I think I want to try. It was too good to just let go like that but…”

 

“But?”

 

“Well, he is 35.”

 

“He’s 35?! That’s over ten years.” Mikasa sighed and stared at the ceiling, trying to summon some kind of divine power for patience.

 

“You yourself said you found it hot?” Armin ignored Mikasa’s comment but his own words only caused Mikasa to stop her praying and shoot a very dirty glare at Eren who flustered considerably.

 

“Ye—yeah. What I mean is, like he has his whole life set up. He is more experienced. He’s working at Tumblr HQ—he has his own team of engineers and working there means he lives in New York, that’s literally across the country.”

 

“Those are all very valid reasons to be concerned but you will never know if you two can make it work despite them or not, unless you try. Plus, let’s be real, your last boyfriend was in Japan and you two actually met only once.”

 

“And it ended in disaster.”

 

“Fair point. This could end in disaster too. Or not. It could be really positive. And why are you trying to find reasons to suggest he does not find you good enough when the guy himself has made it clear that he does?”

 

Eren opened his mouth and then closed, unable to find an argument against the hard cold evidence… He peered to Mikasa who was openly displeased.

 

“So?” He asked to his sister, deliberately trying to look as pleading as he could, and Armin turned towards her as well.

 

“For God’s sake, I’m not your legal guardian. It’s not like you won’t do it just because I say so.”

 

“Yeah but I really would like your support anyway because you’re my precious and stuff?”

 

Her cheeks turned pink at the silly nickname; she sighed once more and cupped her jaw, a mix of concern and affection apparent on her face.

 

 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… fine, okay. I bet he earns a lot and has great health insurance, so he might not be such a bad candidate for now. This doesn’t mean I approve but I will support you because you’re my precious and stuff too.”

 

“God, Mikasa…” Eren whined but he could barely keep himself from grinning, which Mikasa replied with a soft smile of her own.

 

“Good, now that’s resolved, you know what to do.” Armin joined in smiling but that soon faded as he took in Eren’s confused stare. “No? You don’t know what to do? Seriously, Eren?”

 

“I dunno. You know I’m no good at this relationship thing. What should I do, Armin?”

 

“You’re no good at it so you ask me—the asexual aromantic best friend who has never dated anyone?” Armin deadpanned but Eren scowled, before he could counter though Mikasa scoffed; “You know his tumblr right? Send him an ask?”

 

“Hmm…”

 

* * *

 

 

 

**i think tumblr needs a messaging feature asap. asks are not meant for this shit…**

 

Levi stared at the single line on the new ask he received and covered his gaping mouth with a fist. He then unabashedly took a photo of the screen and sent it to Hanji who within seconds replied him with a thumb-up and virtual hug, courtesy of their colourful emoji collection.

 

**You haven’t heard this from me: we’ve had a user story for that since early last year but the senior ProdM keeps postponing it to the next release, _every_ _single sprint_. I’m trying to push for it, but I doubt we’ll have it any time soon. So, tough luck. **

**Hi, by the way.**

 

He paused and cursed himself for sending his response too early. He quickly switched to Eren’s blog and typed up an ask:

 

**Also: thank you.**

 

It took sixteen minutes and twenty seconds (he waited, counting) for his ask to be answered ‘privately’.

 

**can we talk um on Krypto maby? i feel like asks are bothersome**

 

He grinned to himself as he launched the app he himself had written, his status changing from the yellow of ‘away’ to the green of ‘available’. A message arrived right away, when he was just about to write his own to Eren.

>hi levi

>>Hi

>long time no see? :3

>> Fuck, you’re cheesy.

>well fuck you too.

>>It’s cute.

>what?

>>It’s so goddamn cute. Why the fuck are you so cheesy?

>>Never mind that. I’m not used to this. How was your day?

>ah ok. it was so-so. i had ice cream.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“You were totally playing with your phone during the meeting.”

 

“So?”

 

“And at lunch. And while you were working in the morning. You check your phone like every ten minutes.”

 

“I don’t.”

 

“You do! And Erd told me that when you came in for the daily scrum this morning, you were smiling.”

 

“The fuck.”

 

“Exactly: the fuck?! How much are you two talking?”

 

“I don’t know what—“

 

“Levi.”

 

“I don’t know. I don’t count. But we do chat a lot on Krypto and send each other asks too… Sometimes.”

 

“Aw, you two are just adorable.”

 

“Stop grinning like that, I swear to God I’ll—“

 

“Was that your phone? Oh c’mon! Let me see!”

 

“No, nope, go away.”

 

“Come on!”

 

Levi almost dashed towards the elevators and was lucky enough to get into one before Hanji could catch up to him.

 

>guess what! i just got a job from a queer youth centre^^ i’ll build them a website and get their social media stuff in order. pays little but really cool. do you have some time tonite? i’d like to bounce off some ideas.

>>Sure.

>would you mind if we did voice chat maby? typing is kind of a hassle.

>>Sure, we can. I’ll be off work at 6.

>your 6 or my 6?

>>My 6, of course.

>bah why the ofc? is est the golden timezone or sth?

>>No, because it’s the timezone of where I live so when I talk, I’m by default referring to it. So, how would 7 be for you? I should be home by then.

>should be cool. tx.

 

Levi could hardly keep himself from smiling as he got out of the elevators and hurried towards his office, without looking at the direction, his eyes still focused on the screen of his phone.

 

>>By the way, how long will this project last?

>2 weeks or so? maby a month. why?

>>Nothing. Just curious. I have work to do, see you later.

>k good luck n see ya.

 

He switched to the e-mail client of his phone and typed out a short message:

 

_To:[reiner.braun@tumblr.com](mailto:reiner.braun@tumblr.com)_

_Subject: no need to rush the new resizing feature_

_Body: I changed my mind again. Let’s focus on the bug fixes for the next deployment instead, no new features, like we originally planned._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He tapped to check out the message received and upon loading of the app, stopped chewing the homemade penne arrabbiata he was eating for lunch.

 

It took him a whole minute to swallow his mouthful and manage to write a response to the image he had received an hour earlier, while he was still in a meeting.

 

>Did you send me a picture of you snuggling with a kitten?

>>haha yeah well she is our new family member, i thought i’d introduce you 2.

>>we got her from a local shelter just yesterday.

>Okay.

>>she is cute. isn’t she?

>Yeah.

 

He looked at the screen that seemed to be beaming at him. He lowered the brightness as though it would help—it did not. He couldn’t help himself.

 

>You both are.

 

He put the phone on silent and stuffed it vehemently in his pocket and continued with his lunch, focusing on chewing each bite exactly 14 times.

 

Later that day he looked at the blushing-emoji that Eren had sent him far longer than necessary and changed Eren’s profile picture to the kitty selfie he had received in the morning.

 

* * *

 

 

 

The tweeting sound tore through the silence of his living room and Levi took this as an opportunity to take a break. He put his laptop away on the bed and removed his glasses while his hands felt around himself to find his phone.

 

It had apparently slipped underneath the body pillow on his side.

 

>hey levi, are you still up?

 

Unfortunately he was, at 2:39 am on a Thursday.

 

>>Yeah?

>oh good. how are you?

>>You messaged me at 2:39 am to ask how I am?

>>I’m good, by the way.

>god sometimes you’re such a… no i didn’t msg for that.

>>What for then?

>u kno what maby this is not a good time. ttyl.

>>Shit.

>>I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve been working all day and I’m tired.

>>Sarcasm doesn’t translate well over text. Do you want to turn on the cam?

>no i’m kind of at a friend’s place n everyone is asleep.

>>Ok.

>it’s just...

>something happened today.

>I was thinking about it n i just wanted to tell you

>>I’m listening?

>someone asked if i was seeing anyone.

 

Levi closed his eyes and counted to three and then re-read the message. What was it supposed to mean? His mind was tiptoeing on a line between euphoria and devastation.

 

>i kind of said yes.

>more like blurted out i guess.

>levi? u there?

>>Yes.

>ah… okay.

>>?

>i mean. are you good with that?

>>Good with what?

>come on levi. is that what this is or really what is this? we never really named it and idk. are we an item?

>do you want to be in a relationship?

>>Do you want to?

>now you’re just turning the question around.

>>Yes because I want it to be whatever you want it to be.

 

The forty-two seconds it took for Eren’s next message to appear were the longest forty-two seconds of Levi’s life.

 

>i would like that. being an item i mean.

>wow that sounded weird. i mean a relationship. relationships are good.

>argh. i should sleep

>no sleep in 24 hrs. makes me weird.

>>You’re not weird.

>>And you should sleep.

>yeah same to you old man, you should sleep too

>>I will after I finish reviewing Connie’s chaotic code.

>k. good nite.

>>Good night.

>actually levi?

>>Yes?

>so you’re my boyfriend now right?

>>I’m rather too old to be called a boyfriend.

>>But yes, technically.

>nah you’re old only inside. such a hot young thing outside like gd.

>>You should sleep.

>yeah I should. good nite.

>>Good night.

>sweet dreams

>>Go to bed.

>but i’m crashing on marco’s couch

>>Sleep.

>fine fine. grumpy old men these days. *rolls eyes*

 

Levi buried his phone under the body pillow as though it was the rightful place for the device and reclined back on the bed, scrutinising the spotless white of his ceiling while his mind wandered elsewhere.

 

“Boyfriend, huh?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I told you the cute cat selfie would work…” Jean announced rather smugly as he poured cereal into a bowl of milk; if anyone told Eren that there were people on earth who added cereal to the milk instead of the other way around, he would have found it ridiculous but here was Jean committing the sacrilege right before his eyes. However, the smirk on Jean’s face irritated Eren even more than the wrong ordering of the ingredients to this lovely breakfast staple.

 

It had been exactly 12 hours since Levi had officially become his partner and he had been telling the good news to Marco when Jean had intruded.

 

“Shut up. It wasn’t even your idea. And I sent that picture like… a whole week ago.”

 

“I suggested it.”

 

“You only thought of it because Marco posts selfies with his cat.”

 

Jean shrugged; “Marco’s tradition of _I’m-cute-and-my-cat-is-cute-too_ selfies is freely available under GPL and I was the one to package the idea and provide it to you.”

 

Eren gaped and turned to glance at Marco who smiled sheepishly:

 

“Well, I’ve always been a supporter of free and open information and software?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

>i’ve been thinking

>>?

>why don’t you send me selfies?

>>Why should I send you selfies?

>i didn’t say you should

>but you could

>and i think it would be cool

>wow did that rhyme?

>>I’m in a meeting.

>oh ok

 

Levi was indeed in a meeting—technically a teleconference—but it wasn’t the hour long ego-fondling of his peers that he was forced to listen to (with his microphone on mute) on the phone that motivated him to end that conversation as fast as he could.

 

It was not that he did not know or was particularly against the idea of a ‘selfie’; it was simply that he had never engaged in it, himself. Sure, Hanji sent selfies irritatingly often and even Erwin would send once every few weeks or so, either directly to him or on twitter; but he had never particularly felt like capturing ‘himself’ at a specific moment for either a friend or a general audience. How did you even do this? Was there a specific etiquette or— _God_ , he was overcomplicating this, wasn’t he?

 

He thought of taking a picture and sending it right away but when he switched to the camera app and saw his own face—hooded tired eyes due to lack of sleep, the thin headset that still managed to look so ugly on his head and screw up his hair, the terrible lighting of the office—he quickly closed the app and tried his best to focus on Nile’s itchy sound preaching about ‘hyperconvergence’ and Levi felt a headache creep into his skull.

 

The headache lasted the whole day and thus the first thing he did upon arriving home was rushing to the medicine cabinet in the kitchen and swallowing two capsules of ibuprofen. He later grabbed some clean clothes from the bedroom and made a beeline to the bathroom. He filled the whole tub with warm water and dropped in a soothing vanilla musk bath-bomb before undressing and soaking for almost an hour. By the time his little ‘self-care session’ was over, he felt much better. Even more so when he absentmindedly saw his own reflection on the bathroom mirror as he was trying to get into a pair of black sweatpants. He had already put on a black tank top and it contrasted nicely with his pale skin as well as exposing the fruits of his weekly visits to the gym. Hair still wet, stuck to the sides of his face at places but this somehow gave him a younger look and his eyes did not seem to droop with fatigue any more. After only a few seconds of deliberation, he whispered “fuck it” and ran to the kitchen counter where he had left his phone back when he first came in. He walked back to the bathroom, phone in hand, daring himself to not chicken out from this, and finally captured his spontaneous-but-not-spontaneous appearance. He sent the picture to Eren right away without even applying any filters.

 

It took Eren almost two hours to answer and by then Levi had already gotten tired of and moved on from second-guessing himself. Still, he had not expected to receive… this:

 

>i cannot believe you.

 

He considered what to say and wondered what he had done wrong, but his ego did not allow him to ask that outright.

 

>>You said you wanted selfies?

>i didn’t say i wanted, i said you could send them.

>>So you don’t want them?

>no that’s not… like. argh. it’s just

>>It’s just what? There’s something wrong with it?

>wrong? lol wrong yah sure

>>Eren?

>i send you these stupid ones where half the time i look like shit

>>You don’t look like shit.

>but i do like my hair is all messy

>and sometimes i realise my tshirt was dirty only after i already sent the pic

>but they are just for fun so idc

>but then you go n do this

>>Do what?

>SEND ME A GODDAMN HOT ONE

>WHY

>and when i first saw it i was in a lecture

>i had to bury my phone deep in my pocket

>and pretend i adore quantum probability to just function and forget

>... and not react.

>>Oh.

>>So you’d prefer I didn’t send any then?

>come on. now you’re just being mean.

>>Or maybe you’d like to see more?

>oh

>>Are you still at school?

>um no

>>Good.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Okay, why the hell are you sulking and glaring at your phone?”

 

“I’m not sulking and I’m not glaring at my phone.”

 

“You literally just said that while glaring at your phone.”

 

“Shut up horseshit.”

 

“The fuck is his problem?!” Jean cried over to Armin who continued ignoring Eren and typing with the speed of light.

 

“He had a fight with Levi.”

 

“Not a fight.” Eren corrected with an angry tone his glare turning to lock on Armin who did not seem to care at all.

 

“Trouble in paradise huh?”

 

“Did you have to tell Jean? Really?”

 

“Oh, I’m hurt Jaeger. I’m really hurt. And here I was your matchmaker of sorts. Your Cupid.”

 

“For the hundredth time, he didn’t start dating me only because you suggested I send him a selfie with the cat and that I did.”

 

“You said he had said you were cute.”

 

“I’m not doing this. Not today.” Eren shook his head and returned his dirty gaze to the overpriced object lying innocently on the table.

 

“Okay now I’m curious though. Why did you two fight about? I mean just yesterday morning you were showing us the selfie he sent and babbling about how you’ve got the hottest boyfriend? It’s really weird by the way. You should stop doing stuff like that.”

 

“Again, we did not fight.”

 

“Likely. Eren was the only one shouting and then he stomped to Mikasa's room leaving his laptop and thus Levi in the living room.”

 

“Wait, you saw it? Armin, dude, come on spill!”

 

“Armin!”

 

Armin sighed and stopped typing and started rubbing his temples with the pads of his fingers:

 

“Eren can tell you how it started, I was in my room so I don’t know but basically…” Armin glanced rather accusatively at Eren who pouted in defiance, “it was because of user info disclosure policies.”

 

“Wow. That’s… boring. Like, you really yelled at your boyfriend because of government data requests?”

 

“I did not. We just had difference of opinion. Or rather we thought the same thing but he believed our thoughts were not really feasible in real life and some things were inevitable even if undesirable and—you know what? No. I’m not discussing this with you Jean.”

 

“You shouldn’t have shouted at him.” Armin’s voice was authoritative, unfaltering and Eren covered his eyes with the heels of his hands—he knew that much.

 

“I know that much…”

 

Armin shrugged and started typing again while Jean thoughtfully sipped from his latte.

 

“Well, you don’t want to discuss it with me so I guess I’m not in a position to offer any advice, but…” He peered over to Eren who had uncovered his eyes and was looking at him with curious eyes. Jean smiled.

 

“You’re obviously at least sorry that you bitched at him when you both believed in the same things?”

 

Eren scoffed and turned his glare back to his phone. Jean smiled larger.

 

“You could just flirt you know. I’m sure he’d forgive you. It’s still early anyways and you two are too disgustingly in love. You could just… I don’t know. Send him a cute message or something.”

 

A thick eyebrow raised in wonder, Eren pondered.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Levi blinked but the sight before him did not change. At least Eren had sent something after a whole day of absence but this was still strange. Was it his way of saying sorry? If so, apparently Eren sucked at apologies even more than Levi. With the flick of a finger, he launched the messenger.

 

>Eren.

>>good morning!

>It is afternoon here already. Why did you send me a pick-up line… on anon… on tumblr?

>>how did you know it was me?

>I only post poop jokes and research papers on privacy.

>As a result there are exactly 18 people who follow me, 16 of whom are colleagues. The others are mum and you.

>I don’t think mum would send “Your face gives me kernel panic”

>And people at work would be too terrified to say that to me.

>>ok fine i sent it because it’s cute and true.

>You run on Linux? Regular kernel panics are not a good sign, you know.

>>ha ha ha. so funny old man.

>It’s cheesy. Not smooth at all.

>>it’s meant to be not smooth. pick-up lines are never smooth.

>>as if you could do better.

>I probably could.

>>nah i really don’t think so

>Well, we shall see then.

>>???

 

Why did he keep putting himself to situations like this? In completely unfamiliar territory, he racked his brain to find a good one but it proved to be much more difficult than he had anticipated. Asking Hanji for help was always an option but he was rather fearful of the bizarre things they could come up with and while Hanji was a certified genius, he was not sure their intellectual acuity necessarily meant good results in this context.

 

He thought of writing a message and encrypting it with a well-known cipher that wouldn’t take Eren more than a few hours to break, but what if it seemed insulting rather than endearing? On the other hand, if he encrypted with something that Eren could not crack, the whole purpose of flirting would be lost.

 

An acceptable idea occurred to him hours later when he was already in bed and trying to will away insomnia and invite sleep. He reached for his phone immediately and typed out the message anonymously for Eren’s tumblr blog before he forgot:

 

**Thanks to you, I now have zero entropy and regardless of the input, I keep generating the same key: you. I’d make a shitty key generator.**

 

He had not expected to be woken up at 8 am to the shrill ringtone designated for Hanji on his phone.

 

“You sneaky little shit!”

 

“What? What time is it?”

 

“8 am. 8 am and you’re in love.”

 

“The fuck?”

 

“Aw. Your darling is showing you off and you have—“

 

He hung up the call—fully aware that Hanji would try him five minutes later anyway—and checked out Eren’s blog. Apparently his ‘ask’ was ‘answered’:

 

**aw guys see i have the cutest boyfriend ever.**

 

And apparently Eren’s inbox had gotten flooded with questions about their relationship. Even though the attention flustered him a bit and the feeling of being a ‘boyfriend’ again after so long was a bit alien, he found himself smiling…

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It became their ‘thing’.

 

Eren would randomly send a corny and geeky pick-up line and Levi would try his best to one up him and if he was being frank, he often managed to—how, he was not even sure, considering his lack of communication skills. Perhaps, that’s why he was adept at this: pick-up lines were more of a sign of poor self-expression than the opposite.

 

He smirked to himself as he typed an hour before when Eren would likely wake up—perfect timing too as it coincided with his lunch break.

**You had me at ‘Hello World’.**

 

* * *

 

 

 

The initial butterflies did not all diminish but the snakes of doubt showed their face by the end of February. The frigid cold and the snow were not helping either; spring should have been starting, but it stubbornly refused to. They had decided to watch the second season of Psycho-Pass, which they had both missed during the original airing, together, one episode every week. Thus, Wednesdays became their official ‘anime night’.

 

“What am I doing with my life?”

 

In all honesty, he had not meant to think of it, let alone whisper to himself. The aberrant thought had suddenly surfaced on his mind while he was making popcorn in the microwave as Eren patiently waited for him in the living room—well, technically across the country but very much, even if virtually, present on the screen of his laptop on the coffee table in the living room.

 

He sighed and figuratively kicked the hideous head of suspicion away. It was unbecoming of him to worry; sure, for many he would count as ‘too old’ for a long-distance relationship or a lover more than ten years his junior, for that matter. But it did not change the depth of his feelings and the more he spent time with Eren, despite the distance, the more he felt attached and close. He thought (and hoped dearly) that it was mutual—it seemed so. Once the beep was heard, he opened the microwave’s door and grasped the steaming bag of popcorn out. He poured the snack into a large glass bowl before dragging himself back to the living room.

 

First he sat and put the bowl on the table but feeling a chill, he got up again.

 

“Huh? Did you forget something?”

 

Eren’s voice was pleasant and Levi felt it as a warm touch on his skin. Perhaps he was too deep in this and no amount of self-doubt could save him at this point anyway.

 

“Just really—“ before he could finish his words, as if to emphasise what he was about to say, he sneezed, “really cold… Yeah… I’ll go grab a blanket. Shit my nose is frozen.”

 

He heard Eren’s soft laughter as he made his way to the bedroom.

 

The episode was an intriguing one and they spent the better half of the night discussing and debating dystopian technologies. When he finally made it to the bed, half past 1 am, he felt much more peaceful. He had never been one who cared much about others’ judgements and he would not start now; as long as Eren wanted this and he himself wanted this, he would work for it. It was infinitely worth the struggle.

 

He did not expect to receive a gift a couple of days later. He did not expect to be so elated at the sight of a dark blue scarf and gloves. He did not expect to find a card that said “ _so that your nose doesn’t get frostbite_ ”. He did not expect to be hit so hard as though someone had physically punched him in the gut yet the ache that it had caused to feel so sweet and pleasurable.

 

Eren had a tendency to exceed Levi’s expectations and it kind of mesmerised him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought of explaining the pick-up lines but I was too embarrassed to. :') 
> 
> Next chapter will be the last; this was actually supposed to be the last but I felt the flow is better when I cut it here. Hope y'all liked it. Sorry if the breaks were too abrupt; I just wanted to try my hand at this kind of a narrative structure.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said this would be the last chapter? :') It is, actually, but it is also over 7K so I decided to split it in half to better the pacing... I'll post the second part some time next week. I hope this is not too nerdy but I just can't help myself; there's a desperate shortage of nerdy ereri fan fiction and I can hear the duty calling :')

 

It took Eren about thirty seconds to realise that something was off. It would take him less time, if he hadn’t been still so sleepy and busy trying to eat a breakfast sandwich.

 

He groaned.

 

He was not even sure what to do about _this_. Well, he could always write an extension to revert back the feature but just as the feature, it would be so unnecessary… He wondered why they never implemented heavily needed features and instead spent time for such cosmetic gestures and then remembered Levi’s long tirades about the messed up priorities and inane design sense of their Product Manager. Nile Dock. Or Nile Dog. Nile _Something_ , or as Levi affectionately called him, “the fucking Nile”.

 

Still, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to raise hell to his own boyfriend for it.

 

>moving avatars, really?

>really?

>i hate you.

 

Because of the time difference as well as Levi’s packed schedule, they rarely received responses to each other’s messages right away but this time, it seemed, Levi was waiting for it. Eren wouldn’t be surprised if that was indeed the case; he received a reply within seconds and it was the kind of reply that flushed his cheeks and left him mute.

 

>>Hate?

>>How sweet.

>>You DDoS my heart with your charm like that.

 

He should never have listened to Jean’s suggestion and sent that initial pick-up line. It was not that he particularly minded these; the opposite, he felt particularly touched even though they were unbearably syrupy. He also couldn’t find anything to say afterwards.

 

After some consideration he took a screen capture of their messages and edited it such that their avatars were blurred and only the part he said “i hate you” and Levi’s response were visible. He then posted the screenshot on his blog.

 

He did not have to send any other reply because, as he had expected, a few minutes later it was Levi who messaged back to him.

 

>>Okay, now I hate you. Did you have to post that?

>>Hanji is fawning and it’s really disturbing.

>say hi to them for me

>>They are saying that the whole office should see this.

>>Eren if they show this to the office, you’re dead.

>what?? cmon

>i just wanted to show the world how cute my boyfriend is ;)

>>Let’s just pretend you didn’t say that.

>bah old man is self-conscious? how cute^^

>>Seriously, Eren.

>>Stop being a cheeky little shit

>but i thought you liked me naughty?

>>I’m at work.

>i know

>>I hate you.

>but levi, i wasn’t even thinking that

>but now that you insinuate that

>it got me thinking, it got me complicated and now you’re making me NP-hard

>>I really hate you

>lol k k now i feel better but for real, moving avatars?

>like wtf why just why??

>>Nile apparently follows many blogs that make long posts and sometimes by the end of a post he could not recall who the poster was…

>>He thought it would be a cool feature.

>for people with fish memories, yeah. great now i have to make something that reverts this

>>I think they could live with it. You spend too much time on ‘revert’ features that are not really necessary…

>and your team spends too much time on implementing them in the first place

>>And my team gets paid for it quite beautifully

>fair point but i dedicated myself to this already

>i can’t back out now people expect me to provide this

>MY COMMUNITY NEEDS ME LEVI

>>Suit yourself. But, since I’m so kind let me inform you that next week’s release will also have a few similar features

>>You might want to wait before you push an update.

>ugh in a row? shit you guys are killing me

>>Just doing our job

>you owe me for all this trouble

>>I’m not the cause of it, why would I owe you?

>you’re literally the cause of it

>literally like you write the code for this shit

>you get it written when others are slacking

>>Okay fine. What do you want?

>cool i’ll be needing 2 nudes

>and hmm an extra-large vege pizza?

>but like from a good pizza place somewhere actually Italian

>not from dominos or sth

>>OK.

>wow didn’t know it’d go so smooth

>would’ve asked for more

>>Like what?

>idk maby to come to my 127.0.0.1?

>>Eren.

>and then I could give you sudo access

>>Eren, I’m at work.

>and then you could mount my hard drive

>>Okay, I’m going to put the phone on silent and focus on my work now.

>aw old man got distracted??

>wow now that i read it over this conversation was weird af

>i think i’ll delete it

>but i’m serious about the nudes and the pizza

>don’t forget those before the next update pls

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Eren can you ping my Lucy baby at 89.31.146.34?”

 

When Eren didn’t respond Jean peered away from his screen towards his friend sulking on the other side of the table.

 

“Jaeger. Oi. Ping my Lucy I said?”

 

“No offence Jean but that actually sounds like a nasty foreplay thing.”

 

“Well Armin, if you weren’t asexual , quantum entanglement would probably be the greatest turn on for you, so like, _no offence_ but I’m not taking your opinion into account.”

 

Armin snorted and continued chewing on the end of his pen while his eyes were fixed on the complex equations on the book before him.

 

“Why is Jeager out of commission though? What happened now? Trouble in paradise again?”

 

“Not that I’m aware of. He’s been like this since yesterday afternoon though.”

 

“You guys realise that I’m still in the room right? I hate when you guys do this.”

 

“Yeah you’re still in the room and you still haven’t pinged my Lucy.”

 

“You’re such an asshole… What’s the IP again?”

 

“89.31.146.34. And since I’m a forgiving and generous friend, the hell is wrong with you?”

 

Eren typed in the command and hit enter, watching the packets transferred back and forth and let out a sigh of suffering as though the sight before him was the bane of his existence.

 

“It’s pinging fine. And my private life is none of your business.”

 

“So it _is_ about Levi. And Lucy why are you being a mean girl now? Why are you responding to Eren and not to Marco?”

 

“Okay dude, seriously, Armin is right, I feel like I’m hitting on your daughter or something. Yuck. And yes, it is about Levi.”

 

“Knew it. What did you do this time?”

 

“What did _I_ do? Why do you assume that it was me?”

 

“Because despite the nasty glares, he seems like a really calm and mature person while you’re a highly flammable ball of fury?”

 

“I’m so not like that to normal people who are not fucking 24/7 annoying like you are.”

 

“So? What’s the deal? What happened?”

 

Eren dropped his forehead onto the table slowly and closed his eyes. As much as he did not like sharing bits of his private life with Jean, the only person with enough experience to offer any semblance to an advice amongst his close friends was… Jean.

 

“I don’t know. Suddenly he stopped sending me any messages since the other night. I thought maybe he was busy yesterday. But then I sent him a good night selfie last night and he didn’t respond to it yet either and it’s like already afternoon there.”

 

“Isn’t it normal though? The guy is a lead and has his own team in a huge company. He must be busy. I probably have like a quarter of his responsibilities and you know how I get near our deadlines.”

 

“Yeah but he is very organised so he rarely has sudden disappearances and even if he does disappear he usually says so… I don’t know… it’s just strange.”

 

“Why don’t you send him a message about it?”

 

“And then what? Seem all clingy and pathetic? Nope, no, thanks.”

 

“It is strange that he hasn’t contacted you though. Usually your phone goes off every ten minutes to the point that it’s really irritating…” Armin chimed in to Eren’s further worry and misery.

 

“Ugh… is he bored of me? Is that it? Am I boring?”

 

“Was the selfie ugly?”

 

“Jean.”

 

“What was the last thing you guys talked about?”

 

“Hmm… Names of our first computers?”

 

“Did you laugh at his first love’s name or something?”

 

“Kind of. But he laughed too. And it was funny.”

 

“What was it?”

 

“DT.”

 

“DT? That’s odd but there’s nothing—“

 

Armin gasped and his eyes widened considerably which caused Jean to trail off and stare at the blond baffled, then Eren lifted his face and grinned as well.

 

“Okay, there is a joke here that I’m not getting, what is it?”

 

“He actually admitted he didn’t get it. Our little Jean is growing Armin. Must be Marco’s positive influence.”

 

“Fuck off. You know what I don’t—“

 

“42.” Armin tittered, “Jean, _42_.”

 

A few seconds of further bemusement later Jean was struck with realisation and started cackling.

 

“Y—you’re—“ he had to pause to breathe, “you’re telling me… your boyfriend… your stoic boyfriend actually named this first computer ‘Deep Thought’?”

 

“Yup. And he was too shy of making it explicit so he just shortened it to DT. But he apparently hand-made a ‘42’ sticker for the lid.”

 

“That is like geek squared. Wow. I’m speechless. He really doesn’t look like it.”

 

“You’d be shocked. He’s worse than me. A hoarder too: he has the largest sci-fi stash I’ve ever heard of in my life; books, comics, films, anime—everything.”

 

“Okay that sounds wow. A closet geek under all that expensive clothing and sass huh? But I don’t think it was his terrible naming skills that got you two sour?”

 

“First of all, that’s not terrible naming skills. Naming it Lucy is terrible naming skills—you could have chosen anything and you chose… _Lucy_.”

 

“At least he didn’t choose Jane or John?”

 

Eren fist-bumped with Armin as Jean narrowed his eyes at them.

 

“Secondly,” Eren continued grabbing his phone and checking to see that—no surprise—he still had not received anything from Levi, “we didn’t get sour or anything… It was all good and fun and then he got called in from work, some emergency or whatever. So he hopped off and I pretty much pulled an all-nighter at the lab.”

 

“That’s it?”

 

“Yeah. Well… I sent him a good morning message before I crashed on the couch in the lab. It was like 6 am our time.”

 

“Just that? I don’t see what could have gotten him mad…”

 

“Yeah, I don’t either…” Eren mumbled as he flipped to the messaging app, glaring to the launch screen as though the action could trigger Levi to send him something. Once the screen of their last conversation, which was the one-sided good morning message Eren had sent, came up he froze in horror.

 

“Shit.”

 

Both Armin and Jean glanced at him curiously as his face turned ashen and his lips parted in shock.

 

“Eren? You okay?”

 

“Shit... Shit. Shit. Shit. I can’t believe this.”

 

Eren covered his face with one hand while his other hand squeezed his phone as if the physical restriction would cause the words he had sent over twenty-four hours ago to disappear into oblivion.

 

“What’s wrong? Hey, calm down.”

 

“I just can’t believe I screwed it up like this.”

 

“Like how?”

 

Eren pushed the phone towards Armin and Jean leaned forward as well to take a peek.

 

>my love for you is like a session that never times out

>a sys admins nightmare tbh

>lol but not urs right?

>good morning

>n sweet dreams for me since im finally goin to sleep

 

Jean was puzzled.

 

“Apart from the disgustingly corny pick-up line I don’t see what’s wrong with this? Are you two always like this by the way? Wait. Don’t answer that. You are. God all that stuff on your—“

 

“You never used the word ‘love’ with him before did you?” Armin’s voice was concerned and finally the implication dawned on Jean who unabashedly gaped as if Eren was not already feeling insecure enough.

 

Eren started rubbing circles on his temples with his thumbs.

 

“No. No I haven’t. He hasn’t. We haven’t. Shit.”

 

“Well, technically you have now.”

 

“Shut up Jean.”

 

“Okay but have you two ever mentioned ‘love’ before at all? Hinted at it?”

 

“No! I mean… no… it just never came up.”

 

“You sure he hasn’t said anything since this text?”

 

“Yes. He hasn’t sent anything and it’s been over twenty-four hours and I even sent that good night thing afterwards but he still said nothing. Fuck. What do I do, Armin? He must think I’m an overinvested brat. What if he’s creeped out?!”

 

“Calm down. What matters here is the truth.” Jean intervened again with a cool voice.

 

“Jean really I have no ti—“

 

“No, seriously, dude. Chill for a sec. I’m the only one here with actual valid relationship experience so just listen to me for a bit. Did you actually mean it?”

 

“Mean what?”

 

“The L word. Did you actually mean it? Not just colloquially either. I know you’re all sappy about romance so, did you actually _mean_ it? Do you love this guy?”

 

He had never thought that he would have to go through this kind of a conversation with Jean of all people but after a moment of deliberation and acceptance—acceptance of the truth however it prickled him at the time, he confessed:

 

“Yes. Shit. Yes I do love him. It’s been less than three months and I’m in love. Fuck, I _am_ the overinvested brat.”

 

“You don’t know that!” Armin objected.

 

“Damn right—you don’t know that. Maybe he is equally invested too.”

 

“What if he is not though? And should I remind you two that he hasn’t responded at all in over a day? That kind of tells me he is not, right off the bat.”

 

“Not necessarily. We already know that he’s not particularly good with words, right? Didn’t he tell you that before? Maybe it’s that.”

 

“Exactly. Maybe he is just confused and panicking as well?”

 

“But what if he is confused and panicking _because_ he is not that into me but I am that into him and he is just freaking out trying to find a way to easily let me go?”

 

“Now you’re being irrational.”

 

“I—I don’t know. What do I do though? Do I just… wait?”

 

“You could confront him?”

 

“I don’t think I can right now… I already sent something and he didn’t…”

 

“Why don’t you wait till tonight then? If he doesn’t send anything, you can talk with him tomorrow?”

 

“You are both adults for god’s sake and it is not the end of the world.”

 

“I know, I know… I just… I want this to work so much but it’s sometimes so hard when he is not around and he is hot and he is mature and he earns really a lot—“

 

“Okay Jaeger, I’m not really interested in you blabbering about your sugar daddy.”

 

Eren threw a dirty glance at Jean which led Jean to believe a burst of wrath and physical violence was to follow; he even moved back a bit to avoid any punches. It never came though, instead Eren gave out a loud sigh and crossed his arms on the table and buried his face on them. Jean was terrified at the sight as an angry Eren was normal but a depressed Eren was most definitely not. He shared a look of concern with Armin and hoped that Levi would fix this as soon as possible.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“You’re overthinking this.”

 

“I know I’m overthinking this.”

 

“You do realise that by keeping silent you will only make him feel worse if he actually meant it?”

 

“But what if he didn’t and I jumped on the gun and he feels pressured? I can’t half-ass this Hanji.”

 

“Aw… God… I want to be mad at you but I really cannot when you are so cute.”

 

“Fuck off.”

 

Levi pursed his lips, crossed his arms, and stared daggers at the message in front of him. It had already been over a day and he knew he was being ridiculous but he couldn’t shake off the burden on his shoulders.

 

“It’s just a pick-up line Levi…”

 

“I know.”

 

“And you don’t want it to be just a pick-up line?”

 

He turned a side-eye to Hanji that managed to be both threatening and pleading.

 

“C’mon you can talk to me about this at least…”

 

“Yes… yes I don’t want it to be just a pick-up line. But what if it is and I scare him off. Or what if it is not but I come off as flippant.”

 

“I don’t think there’s a flippant bone in your body. I cannot even imagine you pretending to be flippant.”

 

“He doesn’t know that. We do get each other quite well but we’ve been seeing each other for only a few months, he still doesn’t know me that well and I don’t know him that well… Shit… Maybe I am being crazy being this deep already.”

 

“You know that’s not how it works. The people closest to you are not necessarily the ones who’ve known you longest or know a ton about you…”

 

“I know that…”

 

“Then stop brooding and do something about this. You’re being childish.”

 

“I know that without you telling me. Will you just fuck off?”

 

“Okay, how about this: you send him a pick-up line too.”

 

“What?”

 

“Wasn’t that what you guys were doing? Your little awfully corny flirting via Tumblr? Just send him a pick-up line like you’d normally do, but this time you also use the word ‘love’ in it and let’s see how he’ll react.”

 

“That’s… that’s actually not bad of an idea.”

 

“Please, of course it’s not bad—it’s _my_ idea.”

 

They spent the next half an hour brainstorming about what he could write but the suggestions that Hanji came up with were rather creepy and borderline terrifying. As a result, he made the excuse of having to wrap up a job and locked himself to one of the free conference rooms and spent all his time till evening absentmindedly replying to work emails and thinking about his young lover.

 

Finally, after hours of googling pick-up lines and losing his appetite due to some repugnant ones, he found one he liked enough as a response. When he marked the anonymous option and hit the ‘Ask’, the clock already read 8 pm. He was ready to finally leave for home when his phone vibrated.

 

>did u just send me a pick-up line on anon?

>hi btw

>>Yes?

>>Hi.

>oh ok it’s just u kno how a few times other ppl also did

>so i just wanted to ensure that it was you

>>OK

>how are you?

>long time no see huh…

>>Yeah… I’m good. You?

>i’m fine

>no actually

>u kno what i’m not fine

>i’m not fine at all gdi this is gonna sound so pathetic but

>it was like… stressful

>u kind of disappeared for almost 2 days… and now this

>>Eren, look, I’m sorry

>no i’m not asking for an apology or anything

>it was stressful and i’m sorry ok

>i was sleepy n idin’t even realise when i sent the thing

>but i can’t say I didn’t mean it because i do

>i mean it levi but i’m not saying you have to return it

>it’s ok if u don’t feel exactly the same

>you don’t have to

>but i do feel that way n yeah wasn’t planning on blurting out

>but i did so it’s out there but pls don’t feel pressured

>i just i can’t change my feelings but nothing has to change because of it either

 

Levi gawked at the flood of text and without hesitation pressed on the phone icon—the need to say the words that were bubbling up inside him was too great to endure any longer and the more Eren apologised, the worse he felt.

 

After two rings the call connected and he brought the phone to his ear; he could hear Eren breathing too fast and in a moment of fear that Eren would start babbling unnecessary pleas again, he rushed without thinking:

 

“I love you too.”

 

He could hear Eren gasp on the other end of the line and the momentary silence that engulfed the two of them did not feel bothersome or calm; it was charged and electrifying yet not anxious. Simply expectant.

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.”

 

“God… I just… _God…_ ”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“There’s nothing to be sorry of, really, it was just me—“

 

“No, I am sorry. It was stupid and immature and if I was confused I should have just called you and talked it out. I shouldn’t have brooded over it for over a day and leave you in the darkness like that. It was so fucking shitty of me and I’ll never do that again.”

 

“It—it’s okay now. But thank you.”

 

“This is not an excuse but just so that you know, I did not want to pressure you either and I wasn’t sure you had meant it… I had to… think it over a bit too long.”

 

“Levi…”

 

He sighed and suddenly the tension of that had accumulated in his muscles and nerves, deep in the hardness of his bones and the recesses of his soul all drained out of him into nothingness and he felt so light that for a second he was afraid he would float. It was a beautiful feeling; perhaps something to be scared of, a little, for he truly felt high. But the soft and even breathing he listened to did not allow anything akin to fear crawl into his heart or mind, instead he was blessed with a careless peace.

 

“Fuck… I really want you to be here right now.”

 

He could hear the shaking in Eren’s voice and the sound almost stabbed him, he could feel the veins of pain throbbing all over his chest; he wished to be there too—so deeply, dearly, strongly.

 

“Eren…”

 

“I know it’s stupid it’s just I really would’ve liked a hug right now.”

 

“It’s not stupid. I would have wanted to.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.”

 

“Could you kiss me too…”

 

“Sappy little shit. Yeah, yeah I would. I’d kiss the hell out of you. On your chin and on your jaw and on your cheek and on your lips—from one end to another—and the tip of your nose and the curve of your nose and both of your eyelids and that patch of skin between your gorgeous eyebrows…”

 

Eren huffed and then sniffed.

 

“I know my eyebrows are hideous… No need to emphasise that…”

 

“They are not hideous. They are beautiful.”

 

“They are thick as caterpillars Levi.”

 

“Yeah and it suits you. I could kiss them too. Actually I will kiss them too. And I’ll whisper to you that yes, they look like caterpillars and they’re fucking awesome.”

 

“Shit… don’t say that…”

 

“Why?”

 

“I hate you so much right now… I really want to see you.”

 

“I’m still at the office. Give me half an hour? I should be home and then we can video chat?”

 

“Okay…”

 

“Good then… I’ll see you?”

 

“Yeah, see you… ah Levi?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I do too… I love you too I mean… I just wanted to say it too… officially I guess.”

 

“Okay…”

 

“Did you seriously respond ‘okay’ just now?”

 

Levi chuckled, low and amused and could hear Eren’s breath catch a little at the sound, drawing heat along Levi’s whole frame…

 

“Love you too, brat, got to get going now if I want to be at home in 30 though. See you, bye.”

 

“Ah… bye.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep telling myself "this is too corny don't write it" or "this is too geeky don't write it" but then I cannot help myself, I'm sorry :') Let me know if you need clarification with any of the lingo or references, I'd be more than glad to explain.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr fucked me and this chapter up but oh well...

 

It was perhaps a bit overbearing so he considered the different options in his mind but at the same time, he truly wanted to give _this_ as a gift. It was not only because how strongly he felt the need himself but also because, it seemed that it was the right time and that they both required it to further move on and develop. He wanted to show what this relationship meant for him but words were useless after a certain point and he had go beyond vocabulary or anything that could be enclosed in a box.

 

Eren called him about an hour after he had sent the email.

 

“Hi.”

 

“Hi… Are—are you serious about this?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It’s… too big, in a sense. This will cost a lot.”

 

“Not really and I will actually be very offended if you reject it only because of the cost. Any other reason you have, I’ll listen. But not the fucking price tag. It’s not even that expensive; a good suit would cost that much…”

 

“Yeah well some of us don’t get to wear good suits…”

 

Levi sighed.

 

“You know what I meant.”

 

“I know… It’s just… I hadn’t thought of it. Or well, I’ve thought it… Shit, I’ve thought of it _a lot_. Just not so soon, I guess.”

 

“I understand… As I said I’m perfectly fine if you don’t want to.”

 

“But I want to! Fuck, do you have any idea how much I want to?”

 

“I’d say I have a good guess then?”

 

He heard Eren chuckle and the soft sound of amusement relaxed his own tense shoulders. It was going better than he had expected.

 

“So?”

 

“I’m thinking…”

 

“You don’t have to answer now.”

 

“I know… but if we’re doing this I have like a ton of stuff to deal with in advance. Most notable being Mikasa.”

 

“She’ll raise a fuss?”

 

“Yeah for sure though she’ll probably be less concerned if you’re the one coming over…”

 

“As I said in the email, I’m fine with both. I already reserved flexible tickets for either case; either you can come or I can come. Whichever you wish.”

 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the East Coast… And well…”

 

“Well what?”

 

“Well you live alone and I don’t, _so_ …”

 

“Hmm…”

 

“How do you even manage to make ‘hmm’ sound so suggestive? I hate you sometimes.”

 

“It’s your horny imagination.”

 

“Yeah, sure sure.”

 

Levi snickered.

 

“So?”

 

“So… I guess you’ll be seeing me soon. In 3D.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

It was cold.

 

Steely grey and devoid of sunshine, the sky loomed over like a god of dread and agony. Chilling winds howled adding further to the gloomy aura of the day that supposedly belonged to a month of spring. Traffic congestion due to an unfortunate accident led to long minutes of waiting that added up to almost a whole hour spent idly watching the fellow drivers climb to new levels of barely suppressed rage or suffocating boredom. He arrived twenty minutes later than he had planned to, thus; despite having left home much earlier than he was supposed to.

 

It was a terrible day.

 

It was a terrible day and none of the bullshit that the fates pulled managed to ruffle him. Lack of the sun outside did not change the heat whirling inside him, constantly kindled with bottomless excitement and a whole array of possibilities breeding more possibilities. It had been a long time since he felt this nervous—but so sweetly nervous. He was tense yet not distressed at all; something beautiful was pleasantly stirring inside him.

 

The weather or the traffic could not steal his attention away and his mind kept returning to its main point of interest. The plane had already landed some time ago. Eren could be out any minute.

 

Levi combed his hair with his fingers, even though he was sure it was already impeccable. The knowledge did not curb his need to re-do and confirm though, just as he smoothed out his white dress shirt despite knowing that it was similarly flawless.

 

Over the course of one and a half weeks in which they planned everything and talked almost daily, he had thought of this moment many times. So many times, in fact that he had gone through a myriad scenarios of how it could play out and chosen the ones he preferred and perfected them; perfected what he would wear, perfected how he would look, perfected what he would say, perfected how he would say, perfected how he would stand, perfected—

 

Every carefully calculated detail escaped him, in the blink of an eye.

 

Suddenly, he stood there and was not at all aware of how he stood—not at all aware of how he was, as if he had moved away from his own body and never looked back. Suddenly, he stood there and across him, metres away stood a brunet taller than him by a head, wearing a grey hoodie and a pair of ripped jeans, eyes scanning through the large area, over the crowd, for Levi.

 

Levi stood there and he could not move an inch, suddenly too taken; suddenly, he wanted to preserve this moment—this moment in which he watched Eren, who was oblivious to Levi’s presence, looking for him—looking for Levi. There was a haphazard beauty to Eren’s demeanour and gestures and Levi knew that he had made the right decisions all his life, since they ended up bringing him to this very moment, there and then with Eren.

 

He inhaled and with air, strength and the kind of vibrating joy he was usually so foreign to filled into his lungs and seeped into his soul and his feet moved. His feet moved in sure steps, his eyes locked on Eren’s figure, and even though many people passed by in between, his stare never left Eren and his legs moved gracefully around these moving obstacles, determined to reach their destination without any pauses or delays.

 

“Hey…” He said and his voice was not too loud to be heard easily and there was still some distance between them. Eren heard him, regardless; green eyes flashed with recognition as Eren turned to face him and smiled.

 

Eren smiled and Levi’s pace got faster, those last few steps took at most a second or two, as he pushed his body onto the arms that were already open and welcoming him, so naturally, so knowingly as if they had done this a thousand times even though they had not.

 

All the well-practised words crumbled away in Levi’s tongue and his breathing hitched at the sight of the kind smile still gracing Eren’s lips; he had never thought another’s smile would give him this much security, or comfort, or peace, or delight yet here he was charmed into speechlessness by the mere curvature of those chapped lips. He leaned in to kiss and perhaps it was wrong, perhaps after such a long time, he should have waited but he leaned in on pure instinct and received permission wordlessly as Eren reciprocated and when their lips met, the ever-present background noise of thousands flocking in and out of the terminals of one of the largest airports in the whole world faded into absolute silence—for Levi at least.

 

For him, there was only the sound of his pulse leaping forward and the soft warmth of Eren’s mouth, the rough skin of Eren’s full lips, the wet touch of Eren’s tongue; the minty taste of Eren which he hungrily licked and savoured and the tightening arms around his own waist. The gentle but strong embrace held him flushed against Eren’s body and his own hands framed Eren’s face, his thumbs rubbing the jaw on both sides, proving with tactile contact the realness of this person before him, of this person who loved him, of this person whom he loved, of this person whom he kissed there and then.  It was real, he confirmed to himself, even though it felt like a dream.

 

When their lips stopped moving and slowly they parted, hesitant but eager to stare at each other as much as they yearned to kiss each other, Levi watched Eren’s eyes grow large and fill with affection.

 

“Hey…” Eren whispered, voice slightly hoarse and Levi realised how much he had missed this voice despite having talked just that very morning. It was different—he knew for a fact that to think it was different was stupid, for the voice was voice, the same sound waves that reached to him but he also knew that it was different to hear Eren when they were so close together and the words flew not across the whole country at the tips of cell towers but across a few inches alone.

 

“Hey…” Levi replied again unnecessarily, his own voice sounded a bit alien to him; gentler than usual, more repressed yet overflowing. The tender smile on Eren’s face cracked into a grin and his bronze cheeks bloomed pink.

 

“Shit…” He murmured and Levi got curious of the remark; it must have shown on his face and Eren was tittering for an unknown reason. “It’s just…” Eren tried to explain then leaned in again lining their foreheads, “you’re smiling and it’s beautiful…”

 

Honestly, he was surprised, very surprised because he had not been aware even for a moment that his own lips had morphed into a smile but at that moment as Eren’s eyes hooded and the hands on his waist trembled, Levi could not spare even a second for bafflement over his own unawareness. Instead, he brought their lips together once again.

 

* * *

 

 

 “Levi! Oh, you have a guest.”

 

Levi felt like slapping the smug simper off Erwin’s face at that moment but he did not, because no, you don’t slap your boss’ face. It was out of the question even if they had been your friend before being your boss. He threw a poisonous glare but it did nothing to Erwin’s composure—as if repelled from his skin and deflected to god knows where.

 

“Hi.” Erwin offered his hand which Eren took rather reservedly.

 

“Hello…”

 

“I’m Erwin. Levi’s friend.”

 

Eren was about to open his mouth when Levi added between gritted teeth; “Also my boss. Meet the Senior Director of Engineering at Tumblr, kid.”

 

“O—okay. I’m Eren. Um, nice to meet you.”

 

He had not wished to make Eren uncomfortable, but he also wanted to ensure that Eren didn’t get any wrong ideas and uncovered the wrong kind of information to Erwin, which could potentially come to haunt him as relentless teasing in the future.

 

“Eren…” Erwin repeated almost to himself with a nod, his smile deepening into a smirk which made it a torturous struggle for Levi to not try to punch it off.

 

“Yeah, Eren; my boyfriend Eren. Now if you excuse us, we have a company visit—“

 

“Oh, I am aware who he is. Well, Eren, I’ve actually been thinking; you see, I’m familiar with your work. Honestly, even _I_ use it—and I wouldn’t really mind if you quote me on that either. But you know what I think? I think _we_ need people like you.”

 

“Yeah,” Levi sneered as he gripped on Eren’s upper arms and literally pulled him away from Erwin’s eyes resembling those of a hawk locked on its prey, “ _we_ do but what matters is what _he_ likes, needs, and wants in his life. He came to visit his lover’s workplace like normal people do, and if and only if he is in any way remotely interested in any job opportunities here, I can always guide him to our recruitment. Don’t be very hopeful though.”

 

His voice was determined and Erwin looked down on him in a more pompous manner than usual to test, but Levi did not even blink, holding the scrutinising gaze firmly, stubbornly. Erwin chuckled then. “Okay, fine…”

 

He turned to move but the last second changed his mind and glanced back at Eren; “He’s quite protective of you huh? I’ve never seen him go all mama bear for any previous lover.”

 

Eren’s mouth opened and he spluttered, clearly dumbfounded on how to answer this, while Levi took a deep breath to calm himself down and not explode into shouting in the middle of the hallway… like he had on multiple occasions in the past. Erwin simply sniggered and waved a tiny goodbye that appeared too coy for his large (and very professionally clad) figure. Levi loudly ‘tch’ed and groused, “God… he’s such an asshole.”

 

“He—“ Eren tried but started softly tee-heeing, drawing full attention of Levi who seemed to be very confused, which only caused him to snort and then finally laugh out loud, “ _he_ —“ Eren tried again to no avail and laughed a bit more and only when he calmed down a bit, attempted again, “ _he_ called _you_ a ‘mama bear’.”

 

Levi face palmed and exhaled loudly before ordering without any bite or authority in his voice: “Follow me. We only have an hour before lunch to get this over with.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. God… Levi, he called you—“ Eren tittered again at the remembrance, “he called you ‘mama bear’. I need to post this.”

 

“Shit no. Stop posting stuff like that.”

 

“Why? You’re shy?”

 

“I’m not shy nor is it about Erwin’s stupid antics. I just don’t want to become a meme… again.”

 

“Oh come on, it was fun. People like us.”

 

“People don’t just ‘like’ us Eren. People ship us. People write fan fiction of us. People fucking draw fan art of us. It’s disturbing.”

 

“True but some of it was cute.”

 

“It’s not cute; it’s fucking creepy that’s what it is. And do they have to draw me so weird every time?”

 

“Well if someone didn’t want to maintain such a mysterious persona and actually posted one or two selfies, so that people would at least know what you looked like…”

 

“I’m not gonna post selfies so that they can draw accurate fan art of me fucking you.”

 

“You’re such a sourpuss. Guess they’ll have to make do with my descriptions of you for now. And for the record, me topping you actually has more fans and the better fan art.”

 

“Oh, thank you Eren. Duly noted.”

 

As they walked down the hallway, Eren giggled and then poked a finger on his side that Levi turned his face to him only for his eyes to pop in shock to the beep of Eren’s phone’s camera.

 

“The fuck—please tell me you just did not—Eren— _no_. Fuck. No.”

 

Eren chortled to himself and took a final glance at his phone before stuffing it back to his jeans’ pocket, while he snaked his right arm around Levi’s left.

 

“No, don’t worry, just saved your glorious half-glare half-shell-shocked self ‘s all. I wouldn’t share it with rest of the world without your permission. Y’know I’m not like that.”

 

“You’re awful.”

 

“Come on it was funny.”

 

“I’m going to propose them to change the default dashboard colour to maroon, convert posting toolbar to be vertical and place it on the left. Let’s be edgy and why the heck are people writing essays in tags anyway? 140 characters limit to the tags. Go minimalist. Remove avatars from the dashboard stream. Oh I know, the best one: switch the buttons’ places. Would be cool watching them shit themselves cancelling posts or posting stuff they wanted to cancel. See if it’s funny when you have to spend hours just to revert crap like that—if you can, that is.”

 

Eren pursed his lips with fake thoughtfulness; “You’ll screw up the whole UI just to piss me off? Should I be offended or complimented?”

 

Levi shrugged and Eren chuckled as they made towards a large area with many workstations; just as they were about to enter, Eren felt the need to confirm:

 

“Wait—you were kidding right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny story: that joke in the end? I wrote this chapter weeks ago and was thinking of Levi making a threat-- it would have to be something that would surely piss Eren and every other user of Tumblr but also something so ridiculous that it would be obviously a joke. Thus I came up with those illogical changes, especially the changing buttons' places, because, why would you do that but to annoy people? Right? :') Alas, Tumblr proved me wrong; apparently what I find "unbelievably unreasonable and thus impossible to be serious" actually makes serious sense to Tumblr interface designers, whom I would love to meet and yell at. On a side note; I mention moving the posting toolbar around too but that refers to the post creation toolbar you have in the middle of the dash, at the top; not the text editor toolbar. I would be truly weirded out and perhaps become a delusional self-claimed prophet if I had obliviously predicted that as well. Thank God I did not.
> 
> This chapter is actually the last but given the ironic little twist the real life has bestowed upon us and my little joke at the end, I have a tiny drabble-epilogue thing. I will post it tomorrow or the day after :3
> 
> Thanks a lot for reading! I know this was a bit geeky even though it wasn't my initial plan, I kind of like that it is... I hope it added to the realism and also informed you of some cool things, because honestly, computer science can be pretty cool.
> 
> I can be found rambling (about ereri amongst other things) at [ninannarambling on tumblr](http://ninannarambling.tumblr.com/) ;3


	7. the epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the Tumblr staff made this obligatory with that last update...

After a week and a half spent with Levi, the last two days of which fully lacked Tumblr as they pretty much cooped up in Levi’s apartment, disconnected from outside and the internet, fully consumed in each other’s attention, Eren arrived back home near noon on a fine April day, already missing his boyfriend. In the rush of travelling, he had not checked his blog at all and finally had the chance once he settled himself with his laptop on the sofa of his empty home—Mikasa and Armin both out at school. Within seconds of the page loading, he was frozen with shock.

 

It felt like a cruel joke. A very, very cruel joke.

 

Unlike previous instances where similar events had occurred, he did not flame in fury or punch walls and instead grabbed his cell phone and launched the messaging app.

 

>the fuck

 

As he had half-expected, he didn’t have to wait for an answer for too long and Levi replied less than a minute later.

 

>>I swear to God, I’m never taking more than 4 days of vacation. They’re all shitheads.

>>You know it wasn’t me, I was with you on vacation the whole fucking time.

>>It was Nile.

>>Fucking Nile. I hope he dies in the toilet while shitting.

>>Eren?

>>Please tell me you’re not breaking up with me over this.

>ofc not

>wait

>wtf... the buttons!!

>actually u kno what maby

>maby i'll

>the buttons. levi. fuck the buttons. no they *already* fucked the buttons!!

>why would they fuck the buttons? levi why?

>tell me who did this so i can smother them in hate mail.

>>Button thing was Connie apparently...

>>In fairness he told me he entered the user story as an obvious prank… but apparently Nile approved it without reading.

>oh so it was a joke? that *might* make sense

> now that you’re back, they’ll revert right?

>i mean if it was a joke. they can revert at least that right?

>>Well…

>you must be fucking kidding me

>> I wanted to revert, at least the buttons and some parts of the editor but Nile refused saying it would create extra work back log for no reason.

>>Plus he thinks it looks good… “dynamically minimalistic and fun in a cool way” to be exact.

>i

>i just can’t

>i can’t even…

>u kno 2 nudes won’t cut this.

>>I can help you code an extension to revert the text editor?

>k fine

>but i still hate you

>>I can code it naked while on webcam?

>i might be hatin you less

 

Eren sighed and started rolling his sleeves only to stop when a brilliantly mischievous idea surfaced in his mind.

 

>hmm actually…

>just thinking aloud here but

>could i possibly like at all talk you into sabotaging your own company’s servers?

>>No.

>dang. you're no fun.

>>Don't need to sabotage.

>>I found a bug in Bert's code for the new post visualisation.

>>It's screwing the back-end. Memory leak. Shit will hit the fan in a few hours.

>oh idk if i should laugh or cry

>>Laugh. I'll personally be laughing.

>huh? what do you mean?

>you're not fixing it?

>>Nope.

>>I think I'll just sit back and watch them run around in panic.

>i changed my mind

>i think i do love you after all

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You think it does justice? I'm not sure. Hope it does :3 Thanks for sticking with me through this! It was delightful to write and I had several near-heart-attacks thanks to your beautiful comments. Much appreciated. :3


End file.
